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ANECDOTES 



AND 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



OF 



D. L/MOODY 



RELATED BY HIM 



IN HIS 



REVIVAL WORK 



COMPILED BY 



Rev. J. B. McCLURE, 



CHICAGO! 

RHODES & McCLURE, 

94 Washington Street. 
I8 77 . 




/ 1^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 187b; by 

J. B. McCLURE & R. S. RHODES, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at 

Washington, D. C. 



CHICAGO : 

A. M. Wood, Printer, 167 S. Clark Street. 



Chicago Legal News Co., Stereotypers. 



PREFACE. 

The breathless interest given to Mr. Moody's anecdotes 
while being related by him before his immense audiences, and 
their wonderful power upon the human heart, suggested to the 
compiler this volume, and led him to believe and trust that, prop- 
erly classified and arranged in book form, they would still carry 
to the general reader a measure of their original potency for good. 
The best anecdotes have been selected and carefully compiled 
under appropriate headings, alphabetically arranged, making the 
many stories easily available for the private reader and public 
teacher. Mr. Moody's idiom has been strictly preserved. He 
tells the story. "Gold" will be found scattered through the 
volume, which includes Mr. Moody's terse declarations of many 
precious and timely truths. 

The compiler acknowledges the benefit received from the 
extended reports of the Tabernacle meetings given in the daily 
press of Chicago, also the Hippodrome services reported in 
the New York papers, and the volume of Addresses revised by 
Mr. Moody. With the earnest prayer that God's blessing may 
accompany the reading of these stories that have blessed so many 
thousands as they fell from the lips of the great Evangelist, this 
volume is dedicated to the public by the compiler, 

J. B. McCLURE, 
January 30 , 1877. Chicago, III. 



D. L. MOODY'S 
Anecdotes and Illustrations. 



AFFECTION. 



Love, not the Rattan, Conquers Little Moody. 

I remember when a boy, I used to go to a certain school in 
New England, where we had a quick-tempered master, who al- 
ways kept a rattan. It was, "If you don't do this, and don't do 
that, I'll punish you." I remember many a time of this rattan 
being laid upon my back. I think I can almost feel it now. He 
used to rule that school by the law. But after a while there 
was somebody who began to get up a movement in favor of con- 
trolling the school by love. A great many said you can never do 
that with those unruly boys, but after some talk it was at last de- 
cided to try it. I remember how we thought of the good time 
we would have that winter when the rattan would be out of the 
school. We thought we would then have all the fun we wanted. 
I remember who the teacher was — it was a lady — and she opened 
the school with prayer. We hadn't seen it done before and we 
were impressed, especially when she prayed that she might have 
grace and strength to rule the school with love. Well, the school 
went on for several weeks and we saw no rattan, but at last the 
rules were broken, and I think I was the first boy to break them. 
She told me to wait till after school and then she would see me. 
I thought the rattan was coming out sure, and stretched myself 
up in warlike attitude. After school, however, I didn't see the 
rattan, but she sat down by me and told me how she loved me, 



6 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Affection. 

and how she had prayed to be able to rule that school by love, 
and concluded by saying, "I want to ask you one favor — that is, 
if you love me, try and be a good boy;" and I never gave her 
trouble again. She just put me under grace. And that is what 
the Lord does. God is love, and He wants us all to love Him. 



True Love. 

One day when I was in Brooklyn, I saw a young man going 
along the street without any arms. A friend who was with me, 
pointed him out, and told me his story. When the war broke out 
he felt it to be his duty to enlist and go to the front. He was en- 
gaged to be married, and while in the army letters passed fre- 
quently between him and his intended wife. After the battle of 
the Wilderness the young lady looked anxiously for the accus- 
tomed letter. For a little while no letter was received. At last 
one came in a strange hand. She opened it with trembling fin- 
gers, and read these words: "We have fought a terrible battle. 
I have been wounded so awfully that I shall never be able to sup- 
port you. A friend writes this for me. I love you more 
tenderly than ever, but I release you from your promise. I will 
not ask you to join your life with the maimed life of mine." That 
letter was never answered. The next train that left, the young 
lady was on it. She went to the hospital. She found out the 
number of his cot, and she went down the aisle, between the long 
rows of the wounded men. At last she saw the number, and, 
hurrying to his side, she threw her arms around his neck and said : 
"I'll not desert you. I'll take care of you." He did not resist 
her love. They were married, and there is no happier couple 
than this one. We are dependent on one another. Christ says, 
"I'll take care of you. I'll take you to this bosom of mine." 
That young man could have spurned her love ; he could, but he 
didn't. Surely you can be saved if you will accept the Saviour's 
love. If God loves us, my friends, He loves us unto the end. 
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." 



Affection. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 7 

How a Young Irishman Opened Moody's Eyes. 
I want to tell you how I got my eyes open to the truth that 
God loves the sinner. When I went over to Europe I was 
preaching in Dublin, when a young fellow came up to the plat- 
form and said to me that he wanted to come to America and 
preach. He had a boyish appearance; did not seem to be over 
seventeen years old. I measured him all over, and he repeated 
his request, and asked me when I was going back. I told him I 
didn't know; probably I should not have told him if I had known. 
I thought he was too young and inexperienced to be able to 
preach. In course of time I sailed for America, and hadn't been 
here long before I got a letter from him, dated New York, saying 
that he had arrived there. I wrote him a note and thought I 
would hear no more about him, but soon I got another letter 
from him, saying that he was coming soon to Chicago, and would 
like to preach. I sent him another letter, telling him if he came 
to call upon me, and closed with a few common-place remarks. 
I thought that would settle him, and I would hear no more from 
him. But in a very few days after he made his appearance. I 
didn't know what to do with him. I was just going off to Iowa, 
and I went to a friend and said: "I have got a young Irishman 
— I thought he was an Irishman, because I met him in Ireland — 
and he wants to preach. Let him preach at the meetings — try 
him, and if he fails, I will take him off your hands when I come 
home." When I got home — I remember it was on Saturday morn- 
ing — I said to my wife : "Did that young man preach at the meet- 
ings?" "Yes." "How did they like him?" "They liked him 
very much, " she replied : " He preaches a little different from 
you; he preaches that God loves sinners." I had been preaching 
that God hated sinners ; that he had been standing behind the sin- 
ners with a double-bladed sword, ready to cut the heads of the 
sinners off. So I concluded if he preached different from me, I 
would not like him. My prejudice was up. Well, I went down 
to the meeting that night, and saw them coming in with their 
Bibles with them. I thought it was curious. It was something 
strange to see the people coming in with Bibles, and listen to 



8 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Affection. 

the flutter of the leaves. The young man gave out his text, say- 
ing: "Let us turn to the third chapter of John, and sixteenth 
verse : ' For God so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life.'" He didn't divide up the text at all. 
He went from Genesis to Revelation, giving proof that God loved 
the sinner, and before he got through two or three of my ser- 
mons were spoiled. I have never preached them since. 

The following day — Sunday — there was an immense crowd 
flocking into the hall, and he said, "Let us turn to the third chap- 
ter of John, sixteenth verse : ' For God so loved the world that 
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
shall not perish, but have everlasting life;'" and he preached the 
fourth sermon from this verse. He just seemed to take the 
whole text and throw it at them, to prove that God loved the 
sinner, and that for six thousand years he had been trying to 
convince the world of this. I thought I had never heard a 
better sermon in my life. It seemed to be a new revelation to 
all. Ah, I notice there are some of you here who remember those 
times; remember those nights. I got a new idea of the blessed 
Bible. On Monday night I went down and the young man said, 
"Turn to the third chapter of John, sixteenth verse," and he 
seemed to preach better than ever. Proof after proof was quo- 
ted from Scripture to show how God loved us. I thought sure he 
had exhausted that text, but on Tuesday he took his Bible in his 
hand and said : " Turn to the third chapter of John, sixteenth 
verse," and he preached the sixth sermon from that verse. He 
just seemed to climb over his subject, while he proved that there 
was nothing on earth like the love of Christ, and he said "If I can 
only convince men of His love, if I can but bring them to believe 
this text, the whole world will be saved." On Thursday he selec- 
ted the same text, John hi., 16, and at the conclusion of the ser- 
mon he said: "I have been trying to tell you for seven nights 
now, how Christ loves you, but I cannot do it. If I could bor- 
row Jacob's ladder and climb up to heaven, and could see Gabriel 
there and ask him to tell me how much God loves me, he would 



Affection. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 9 

only say, "God so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life. " How a man can go out of this tab- 
ernacle after hearing this text, saying, " God does not love me, " 
is a mystery to me. 

Love's Triumph in John Wannamaker's Sunday 
School. 

Mr. John Wannamaker, superintendent of probably one of 
the largest Sunday schools in the world, had a theory that he 
would never put a boy out of his school for bad conduct. He 
argued if a boy misbehaved himself, it was through bad training 
at home, and that if he put him out «of the school no one would 
take care of him. Well, this theory was put to the test one day. 
A teacher came to him and said, "I've got a boy in my class that 
must be taken out ; he breaks the rules continually, he swears and 
uses obscene language, and I cannot do anything with him." 
Mr. Wannamaker did not care about putting the boy out, so he 
sent the teacher back to his class. But he came again and said 
that unless the boy was taken from his class, he must leave' it. 
Well, he left, and a second teacher was appointed. The second 
teacher came with the same story, and met with the same reply 
from Mr. Wannamaker. And he resigned. A third teacher was 
appointed, and he came with the same story as the others. Mr. 
Wannamaker then thought he would be compelled to turn the 
boy out at last. One day a few teachers were standing about, 
and Mr. Wannamaker said: "I will bring this boy up and read 
his name out in the school, and publicly excommunicate him. " 
Well, a young lady came up and said to him: "I am not doing 
what I might for Christ, let me have the boy; I will try and save 
him." But Mr. Wannamaker said: "If these young men cannot 
do it, you will not. " But she begged to have him, and Mr. Wan- 
namaker consented. 

She was a wealthy young lady, surrounded with all the luxu- 
ries of life. The boy went to her class, and for several Sundays 
he behaved himself and broke no rule. But one Sundav he broke 



io MOODY'S ANECDOTES Affection. 

one, and, in reply to something she said, spit in her face. She took 
out her pocket-handkerchief and wiped her face, but she said 
nothing. Well, she thought upon a plan, and she said to him, 
"John," — we will call him John, — "John, come home with me." 
"No," says he, "I won't; I won't be seen on the streets with you." 
She was fearful of losing him altogether if he went out of the 
school that day, and she said to him, "Will you let me walk home 
with you?" "No, I won't," said he, "I won't be seen on the 
street with you. " Then she thought upon another plan. She 
thought on the "Old Curiosity Shop," and she said, "I won't be 
at home to-morrow or Tuesday, but if you will come round to the 
front door on Wednesday morning there will be a little bundle for 
you." "I don't want it; you may keep your own bundle." She 
went home, but made the bundle up. She thought that curios- 
ity might make him come. 

Wednesday morning arrived and he had got over his mad fit, 
an,d thought he would just like to see what was in that bundle. 
The little fellow knocked at the door, which was opened, and he 
told his story. She said: "Yes, here is the bundle." The boy 
opened it and found a vest and a coat and other clothing, and a 
little note written by the young lady, which read something like 
this: 

"Dear Johnnie: — Ever since you have been in my class I 
have prayed for you every morning and evening, that you might 
be a good boy, and I want you to stop in my class. Do not 
leave me." 

The next morning, before she was up, the servant came to 
her and said there was a little boy below who wished to see her. 
She dressed hastily, and went down stairs, and found Johnnie on 
the sofa weeping. She put her arms around his neck, and he 
said to her, "My dear teacher, I have not had any peace since I 
got this note from you. I want you to forgive me." "Won't you 
let me pray for you to come to Jesus?" replied the teacher. And 
she went down on her knees and prayed. And now Mr. Wan- 
namaker says that boy is the best boy in his Sunday-school. 
And so it was love that broke that boy's heart. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. n 



AFFLICTION. 



A Child Visits Abraham Lincoln, and Saves the Life 
of a Condemned Soldier. 

During the war I remember a young man, not twenty, who 
was court-martialed down in the front and sentenced to be shot. 
The story was this: The young fellow had enlisted. He was 
not obliged to, but he went off with another young man. They 
were what we would call "chums." One night this companion 
was ordered out on picket duty, and he asked the young man to 
go for him. The next night he was ordered out himself; and 
having been awake two nights, and not being used to it, fell 
asleep at his post, and for the offense he was tried and sentenced 
to death. It was right after the order issued by the President 
that no interference would be allowed in cases of this kind. This 
sort of thing had become too frequent, and it must be stopped. 
When the news reached the father and mother in Vermont it nearly 
broke their hearts. The thought that their son should be shot 
was too great for them. They had no hope that he would be saved 
by anything they could do. But they had a little daughter who 
had read the life of Abraham Lincoln, and knew how he had 
loved his own children, and she said: "If Abraham Lincoln knew 
how my father and mother loved my brother he wouldn't let him 
be shot. " That little girl thought this matter over and made up 
her mind to see the President. She went to the White House, 
and the sentinel, when he saw her imploring looks, passed her in, 
and when she came to the door and told the private secretary 



12 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Affliction. 

that she wanted to see the President, he could not refuse her. 
She came into the chamber and found Abraham Lincoln sur- 
rounded by his generals and counselors, and when he saw the little 
country girl he asked her what she wanted. The little maid told 
her plain, simple story — how her brother, whom her father and 
mother loved very dearly, had been sentenced to be shot; how 
they were mourning for him, and if he was to die in that way it 
would break their hearts. The President's heart was touched 
with compassion, and he immediately sent a dispatch canceling 
the sentence and giving the boy a parole so that he could come 
home and see that father and mother. I just tell you this to show 
you how Abraham Lincoln's heart was moved by compassion for 
the sorrow of that father and mother, and if he showed so much 
do you think the Son of God will not have compassion upon you, 
sinner, if you only take that crushed, bruised heart to him? 



Broken Hearts, 



There is no class of people exempt from broken hearts. The 
rich and the poor suffer alike. There was a time when I used to 
visit the poor that I thought all the broken hearts were to be found 
among them, but within the last few years I have found there are 
as many broken hearts among the learned as the unlearned, the 
cultured as the uncultured, the rich as the poor. If you could 
but go up one of our avenues and down another and reach the 
hearts of the people, and get them to tell their whole story, you 
would be astonished at the wonderful history of every family. I 
remember a few years ago I had been out of the city for some 
weeks. When I returned I started out to make some calls. The 
first place I went to I found a mother; her eyes were red with 
weeping. I tried to find out what was troubling her, and she 
reluctantly opened her heart and told me all. She said: "Last 
night my only boy came home about midnight, drunk. I didn't 
know that he was addicted to drunkenness, but this morning I 
found out that he had been drinking for weeks, and, " she contin- 
ued, "I would rather have seen him laid in the grave than have 
had him brought home in the condition I saw him in last night. " 



Affliction. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 13 

I tried to comfort her as best I could when she told me her sad 
story. When I went away from that house I didn't want to go 
into any other house where there was family trouble. The very 
next house I went to, however, where some of the children who 
attended my Sunday school resided, I found that death had been 
there and laid his hand on one of them. The mother spoke to 
me of her afflictions, and brought to me the playthings and the 
little shoes of the child, and the tears trickled down that mother's 
cheeks as she related to me her sorrow. I got out as soon as 
possible, and hoped I would see no more family trouble that day. 

The next visit I made was to a home where I found a wife 
with a bitter story. Her husband had been neglecting her for a 
long time; "and now," she said, "he has left me, and I don't know 
where he has gone. Winter is coming on, and I don't know what 
is going to become of my family. " I tried to comfort her, and 
prayed with her, and endeavored to get her to lay all her sorrows 
on Christ. The next home I entered I found a woman crushed 
and broken-hearted. She told me her boy had forsaken her, and 
she had no idea where he had gone. That afternoon I made five 
calls, and in every home I found a broken heart. Every one had 
a sad tale to tell, and if you visited every house in Chicago you 
would find the truth in the saying that "there is a skeleton in 
every house. " I suppose while I am talking you are thinking of 
the great sorrow in your own bosom. I do not know anything 
about you, but if I were to come around to every one of you, and 
you were to tell me the truth I would hear a tale of sorrow. The 
very last man I spoke to last night was a young mercantile man 
who told me his load of sorrow had been so great that many times 
during the last few weeks he had gone down to the lake and had 
been tempted to plunge in and end his existence. His burden 
seemed too much for him. Think of the broken hearts in Chicago 
to-night ! They could be numbered by hundreds — yea, thousands. 
All over this city are broken hearts. 

If all the sorrow represented in this great city were written in 
a book, this building couldn't hold that book, and you couldn't 
read it in a long lifetime. This earth is not a stranger to tears, 



14 MOODYS ANECDOTES Affliction. 

neither is the present the only time when they could be found in 
abundance. From Adam's days to ours tears have been shed, 
and a wail has been going up to heaven from the broken-hearted. 
And I say it again, it is a mystery to me how all those broken 
hearts can keep away from Him who has come to heal them. 



" That is Your Fault. 1 



I remember a mother coming to me and saying, "It is easy 
enough for you to speak in that way; if you had the burden that 
I've got, you couldn't cast it on the Lord. " "Why, is your burden 
so great that Christ can't carry it?" I asked. "No: it isn't too 
great for Him to carry; but I can't put it on Him. " "That is your 
fault," I replied; and I find a great many people with burdens 
who, rather than just come to Him with them, strap them tighter 
on their backs and go away struggling under their load. I asked 
her the nature of her trouble, and she told me. "I have an only 
boy who is a wanderer on the face of the earth. I don't know 
where he is. If I only knew where he was I would go around the 
world to find him. You don't know how I love that boy. This 
sorrow is killing me." "Why can't you take him to Christ? You 
can reach Him at the throne, even though he be at the uttermost 
part of the world. Go tell God all about your trouble, and he 
will take away his sin, and not only that, but if you never see him 
on earth, God can give you faith that you will see your boy in 
heaven. " And then I told her of a mother who lived down in the 
southern part of Indiana. Some years ago her boy came up to 
this city. He was a moralist. My friends, a man has to have 
more than morality to lean upon in this great city. He hadn't 
been here long before he was led astray. A neighbor happened 
to come up here and found him one night in the streets drunk. 

When that neighbor went home, at first he thought he 
wouldn't say anything about it to the boy's father, but after- 
ward he thought it was his duty to tell him. So in a crowd in 
the street of their little town he just took the father aside, and 
told him what he had seen in Chicago. It was a terrible blow. 
When the children had been put to bed that night he said to his 



Affliction. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 15 

wife, "Wife, I have bad news. I have heard from Chicago to- 
day. " The mother dropped her work in an instant and said : 
"Tell me what it is. " "Well, our son has been seen on the streets 
of Chicago, drunk. " Neither of them slept that night, but they 
took their burden to Christ, and about daylight the mother said : 
" I don't know how, I don't know when or where, but God has 
given me faith to believe that our son will be saved and will never 
come to a drunkard's grave. " 

One week after, that boy left Chicago. He couldn't tell why 
■ — an unseen power seemed to lead him to his mother's home, 
and the first thing he said on coming over the threshold was, 
"Mother, I have come home to ask you to pray for me ; " and 
soon after he came back to Chicago a bright and shining light. 
If you have a burden like this, fathers, mothers, bring it to Him 
and cast it on Him, and He, the Great Physician, will heal your 
broken hearts. 



"It will Kill Her." 

I was thinking to-day of the difference between those who 
knew Christ when trouble comes upon them and those who knew 
Him not. I know several members of families who are just 
stumbling into their graves over trouble. I know two widows in 
Chicago who are weeping and mourning over the death of their 
husbands, and their grief is just taking them to their graves. 
Instead of bringing their burdens to Christ, they mourn day and 
night, and the result will be that in a few weeks or years at most 
their sorrow will take them to their graves when they ought to 
take it all to the Great Physician. 

Three years ago a father took his wife and family on board 
that ill-fated French steamer. They were going to Europe, and 
when out on the ocean another vessel ran into her and she went 
down. That mother when I was preaching in Chicago used to 
bring her two children to the meetings every night. It was one 
of the most beautiful sights I ever looked on, to see how those 
little children used to sit and listen, and to see the tears trickling 
down their cheeks when the Saviour was preached. It seemed 



16 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Affliction. 

as if nobody else in that meeting drank in the truth as eagerly as 
those little ones. 

One night when an invitation had been extended to all to go 
into the inquiry room, one of these little children said: "Mamma, 
why can't I go in too?" The mother allowed them to come into 
the room, and some friend spoke to them, and to all appearances 
they seemed to understand the plan of salvation as well as their 
elders. When that memorable night came that mother went down 
and came up without her two children. Upon reading the news 
I said : " It will kill her, " and I quitted my post in Edinburgh — the 
only time I left my post on the other side — and went down to 
Liverpool to try and comfort her. But when I got there I found 
that the Son of God had been there before me, and instead of me 
comforting her, she comforted me. She told me she could not 
think of those children as being in the sea; it seemed as if Christ 
had permitted her to take those children on that vessel only that 
they might be wafted to Him, and had saved her life only that she 
might come back and work a little longer for Him. When she 
got up the other day at a mothers' meeting in Farwell Hall, and 
told her story, I thought I would tell the mothers of it the first 
chance I got. 

So if any of you have had some great affliction, if any of you 
have lost a loving father, mother, brother, husband, or wife, come 
to Christ, because God has sent Him to heal the broken-hearted. 



"Father, Father, Come This Way." 

I remember a number of years ago I went out of Chicago to 
try to preach. I went down to a little town where was being 
held a Sunday-school convention. I was a perfect stranger in 
the place, and when I arrived a man stepped up to me and asked 
me if my name was Moody. I told him it was, and he invited 
me to his house. When I got there he said he had to go to the 
convention, and asked me to excuse his wife, as she, not having 
a servant, had to attend to her household duties. He put me into 
the parlor, and told me to amuse myself as best I could till he 
came back. I sat there, but the room was dark, and I could not 



Affdction. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 17 

read, and I got tired. So I thought I would try and get the 
children and play with them. I listened for some sound of child- 
hood in the house, but could not hear a single evidence of the 
presence of little ones. When my friend came back I said: 
"Haven't you any children?" "Yes," he replied, "I have one, but 
she's in Heaven, and I am glad she is there, Moody." "Are you 
glad that your child's dead?" I inquired. 

He went on to tell me how he had worshiped that child; 
how his whole life had been bound up in her to the neglect of his 
Saviour. One day he had come home and found her dying. 
Upon her death he accused God of being unjust. He saw some 
of his neighbors with their children around them. Why hadn't 
He taken some of them away? He was rebellious. After he 
came home from her funeral he said: "All at once I thought I 
heard her little voice calling me, but the truth came to my heart 
that she was gone. Then I thought I heard her feet upon the 
stairs; but I knew she was lying in the grave. The thought of 
her loss almost made me mad. I threw myself on my bed and 
wept bitterly. I fell asleep, and while I slept I had a dream, but 
it almost seemed to me like a vision. 

"I thought I was going over a barren field, and I came to a 
river so dark and chill-looking that I was going to turn away, 
when all at once I saw on the opposite bank the most beautiful 
sight I ever looked at. I thought death and sorrow could never 
enter into that lovely region. Then I began to see beings all so 
happy looking, and among them I saw my little child. She waved 
her little angel hand to me and cried, ' Father, father, come this 
way.' I thought her voice sounded much sweeter than it did on 
earth. In my dream I thought I went to the water and tried to 
cross it, but found it deep and the current so rapid that I thought 
if I entered it would carry me away from her forever. I tried to 
find a boatman to take me over, but couldn't, and I walked up 
and down the river trying to find a crossing, and still she cried : 
' Come this way.' All at once I heard a voice come rolling 
down, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto 
the Father but by Me.' The voice awoke me from my sleep, 
2 



18 MOODY S ANECDOTES Affliction. 

and I knew it was my Saviour calling me, and pointing the way 
for me to reach my darling child. 

"I am now superintendent of a Sunday-school; I have made 
many converts; my wife has been converted, and we will, through 
Jesus as the way, see one day our child." 



The Place of Safety. 

My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, 
of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe 
spot on earth where the sinner can stand — Calvary. Out in our 
western country, in the autumn, when men go hunting, and there 
has not been rain for 'many months, sometimes the prairie grass 
catches fire. Sometimes, when the wind is strong, the flames 
may be seen rolling along, twenty feet high, destroying man and 
beast in their onward rush. When the frontiersmen see what is 
coming, what do they do to escape? They know they cannot run 
as fast as that fire can run. Not the fleetest horse can escape it. 
They just take a match and light the grass around them. The 
flames sweep onwards; they take their stand in the burnt dis- 
trict and are safe. They hear the flames roar as they come 
along; they see death bearing down upon them with resistless 
fury, but they do not fear. They do not even tremble as the 
ocean of flame surges around them, for over the place where they 
stand the fire has already past and there is no danger. There is 
nothing for fire to burn. And there is one spot on earth that 
God has swept over. Eighteen hundred years ago the storm 
burst on Calvary; the Son of God took it into his own bosom, 
and now, if we take our stand by the Cross, we are safe for time 
and eternity. 

GOLD. 

— Christ never preached any funeral sermons. 

— His is a loving, tender hand, full of sympathy and com- 
passion. 

— Take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let death, let the 
judgment come : the victory is Christ's and yours through Him. 



Affliction. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 19 

— The only man who ever suffered before Christ was that 
servant who had his ear cut off. But most likely in a moment 
afterward he had it on, and very likely it was a better ear than 
ever, because whatever the Lord does He does it well. No man 
ever lost his life with Him. 

— A great many people wonder why it was that Christ did not 
come at once to Martha and Mary, whom He loved, whenever 
He heard of their affliction. It was to try them, and it is the 
same with His dealings toward us. If He seems not to come to 
us in our affliction, it is only to test us. 

— When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues came upon 
Egypt, and he had power to destroy men's lives ; when the Spirit 
came upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit 
came upon Gideon, no man could stand before him; and when it 
came upon Joshua, he moved around the city of Jericho and the 
whole city fell into his hands ; but when the Spirit came upon the 
Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted. 

— No matter how low down you are; no matter what your 
disposition has been; you may be low in your thoughts, words, 
and actions; you may be selfish; your heart may be overflowing 
with corruption and wickedness; yet Jesus will have compassion 
upon you. He will speak comforting words to you; not treat 
you coldly or spurn you, as perhaps those of earth would, but 
will speak tender words, and words of love and affection and 
kindness. Just come at once. He is a faithful friend — a friend 
that sticketh closer than a brother. 



zo MOODY'S ANECDOTES 



ASSURANCE. 



Napoleon and the Private. 

It is said of Napoleon that while he was reviewing his army 
one day, his horse became frightened at something, and the Em- 
peror lost his rein, and the horse went away at full speed, and 
the Emperor's life was in danger. He could not get hold of the 
rein, and a private in the ranks saw it, and sprang out of the 
ranks towards the horse, and was successful in getting hold of the 
horse's head at the peril of his own life. The Emperor was very 
much pleased. Touching his hat, he said to him, "I make you 
Captain of my Guard. " The soldier didn't take his gun and walk 
up there. He threw it away, stepped out of the ranks of the 
soldiers, and went up to where the body-guard stood. The cap- 
tain of the body-guard ordered him back into the ranks, but he 
said "No! I won't go!" "Why not?" "Because I am Captain of 
the Guard." "You Captain of the Guard?" "Yes," replied the 
soldier. "Who said it?" and the man, pointing to the Emperor, 
said, " He said it. " That was enough. Nothing more could be 
said. He took the Emperor at his word. My friends, if God 
says anything, let us take Him at His word. "He that believeth 
on the Lord Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life." Don't you believe it? Don't you believe you have got 
everlasting life? It can be the privilege of every child of God 
to believe and then know that you have got it. 



Five Million Dollars.' 



One thing I know — I cannot speak for others, but I can 
speak for myself; I cannot read other minds and other hearts ; I 
cannot read the Bible and lay hold for others; but I can read for 



Assurance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 21 

myself, and take God at his word. The great trouble is that 
people take everything in general, and do not take it to them- 
selves. Suppose a man should say to me, "Moody, there was a 
man in Europe who died last week, and left five million dollars to 
a certain individual. "Well," I say, "I don't doubt that; it's 
rather a common thing to happen, " and I don't think anything 
more about it. But suppose he says, "But he left the money to 
you." Then I pay attention; I say, "To me?" "Yes, he left it 
to you. " I become suddenly interested. I want to know all about 
it. So we are apt to think Christ died for sinners; He died for 
everybody, and for nobody in particular. But when the truth 
comes to me that eternal life is mine, and all the glories of Heaven 
are mine, I begin to be interested. I say, "Where is the chapter 
and verse where it says I can be saved?" If I put myself among 
sinners, I take the place of the sinner, then it is that salvation is 
mine and I am sure of it for time and eternity. 



Engaging Rooms Ahead. 

Mr Sankey and myself — going about and preaching the 
gospel, is nothing new. You will find them away back eighteen 
hundred years ago, going off two by two, like Brothers Bliss and 
Whittle, and Brothers Needham and Stebbins, to different towns 
and villages. They had gone out, and there had been great revi- 
vals in all the cities, towns, and villages they had entered. Every- 
where they had met with the greatest success. Even the very 
devils were subject to them. Disease had fled before them. 
When they met a lame man they said to him, "You don't want to 
be lame any longer," and he walked. When they met a blind 
man they but told him to open his eyes, and behold, he could see. 
And they came to Christ and rejoiced over their great success, 
and He just said to them, "I will give you something to rejoice 
over. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. " 

Now there are a great many people who do not believe in 
such an assurance as this, "Rejoice, because your names are 
written in heaven. " How are you going to rejoice if your names 



22 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Assurance. 

are not written there? While speaking about this some time ago, 
a man told me we were preaching a very ridiculous doctrine when 
we preached this doctrine of assurance. I ask you in all candor 
what are you going to do with this assurance if we don't preach it? 
It is stated that our names are written there ; blotted out of the 
Book of Death and transferred to the Book of Life. 

I remember while in Europe I was traveling with a friend — 
she is in this hall to-night. On one occasion we were journeying 
from London to Liverpool, and the question was put as to where 
we would stop. We said we would go to the "Northwestern," at 
Lime street, as that was the Hotel where Americans generally 
stopped at. When we got there the house was full and they could 
not let us in. Every room was engaged. But this friend said, "I 
am going to stay here. I engaged a room ahead. I sent a tele- 
gram on. " My friends, that is just what the Christians are doing 
— sending their names in ahead. They are sending a message up 
saying: "Lord Jesus, I want one of those mansions You are pre- 
paring; I want to be there." That's what they are doing. 

Every man and woman who wants one, if you have not 
already got one, had better make up your mind. Send your 
names up now. I would rather a thousand times have my name 
written in the Lamb's Book than have all the wealth of the world 
rolling at my feet. 



" He Will Not Rest. 



Suppose a man is going to Cincinnati, and he gets on the 
cars, but he feels uneasy lest the train will take him to St. Louis 
instead of his destination. He will not rest till he knows he is on 
the right road, and the idea that we are on the road to eternity as 
fast as time can take us, and do not know our destination, is con- 
trary to Scripture. If we want peace we must know it, and we 
can know it; it is the Word of God. Look what Peter says: 
"We know we have an incorruptible dwelling." Then in Paul's 
epistle to the Colossians, L, 12, "Giving thanks unto the Father 
which hath made us meet" — hath made us, not going to — "to be 



Assurance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 23 

partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who hath 
delivered us" — not going to deliver us, but He hath delivered us: 
this is an assurance — "from the power of darkness, and hath trans- 
lated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. " 



"Very Orthodox.' ' 

A person came to me some time ago and said: "Mr. Moody, 
I wish you would give me a book that preaches assurance, and 
that tells the children of God it is their privilege to know they 
are accepted. " I said, "Here is a book; it is very orthodox. It 
was written by John, the most intimate friend of Jesus while He 
was on earth. The man who laid his head upon His bosom. " 
Turn to John and see what he says in the 5th chapter, "For in 
them ye think ye have eternal life. " 



"I Don't Know." 

There is no doubt about assurance in the Word of God. A 
person said to me some time ago : " I think it is great pre- 
sumption for a person to say she is saved. " I asked her if she 
was saved. "I belong to a church," she sobbed. "But are you 
saved?" "I believe it would be presumption in me to say that I 
was saved. " "Well I think it is a greater presumption for any one 
to say: 'I don't know if I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,' 
because it is written, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting 
life. " It is clearly stated that we have assurance. 



"If I Knew. 



Many think that assurance is not to be had while traveling 
through this world — they must wait till they get before the terrible 
judgment seat to know whether they are accepted or not. And 
I find some ministers preach this precious doctrine from their pul- 
pits. I heard of a minister who, while on his way to the burial of 
a man, began to talk upon the subject of assurance. "Why, " said 
he, "if I knew for a certainty that I was saved the carriage couldn't 
hold me. I would have to jump out with joy. " A man should be 



24 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Assurance, 

convinced that he has the gospel, before he preaches it to any one 
else. Why, a man need not try to pull a man out of the river if 
he is in it himself. A man need not try to lift a man out of a pit 
if he is there too. No man can preach salvation till he knows 
he is saved. 

"I Know." 

The man of God who has fixed his feet on the rock of salva- 
tion can say with certainty, " I know. " If you have not got 
assurance and want it, just believe God's Word. If you go down 
South and ask those three million colored people how they think 
they are free, they won't talk about their feelings; they just believe 
that Abraham Lincoln made them free. They believe the procla- 
mation, and so we must believe the proclamation God has made 
in the Bible. " One thing thou teachest, " that is salvation. 



Moody's Declaration. 

A great many people say, "Mr. Moody, I would like to know 
whether I am a Christian or not. I would like to know if I am 
saved." The longer I live the more I am convinced that it is 
one of the greatest privileges of a child of God to know — to be 
able to say, "I am saved." The idea of walking through life 
without knowing this until we get to the great white throne, is 
exploded. If the Bible don't teach assurance it don't teach 
justification by faith; if it don't teach assurance it don't teach re- 
demption. The doctrine of assurance is as clear as any doctrine 
in the Bible. 

How many people in the Tabernacle when I ask them if 
they are Christians, say, "Well, I hope so," in a sort of a hesita- 
ting way. Another class say, "I am trying to be." This a queer 
kind of testimony, my friends. I notice no man is willing to go 
into the inquiry room till he has got a step beyond that. That 
class of Christians don't amount to much. The real Christian 
puts it, "I believe; I believe that my Redeemer liveth; I believe 
that if this building of flesh were destroyed, I have a building not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." No hoping and trust- 



Assurance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



25 



ing with them. It is, "I know." Hope is assured to the Chris- 
tian. It is a sure hope ; it isn't a doubting hope. Suppose a 
man asked me if my name was Moody, and I said, "Well, I hope 
so," wouldn't it sound rather strange? "I hope it is;" or, "I'm try- 
ing to be Moody." Now, if a man asks you if you are a Christian, 
you ought to be able to give a reason. 



GOLD. 

— There cannot be any peace where there is uncertainty. 

— There is no knowledge like that of a man who knows he is 
saved, who can look up and see his "title clear to mansions in 
the skies." 

— I believe hundreds of Christian people are being deceived by 
Satan now on this point, that they have not got the assurance of 
salvation just because they are not willing to take God at His 
word. 

— "But," a man said to me, "no one has come back, and we 
don't know what is in the future. It is all dark, and how can we 
be sure?" Thank God! Christ came down from heaven, and I 
would rather have Him, coming as he does right from the bosom 
of the Father, than any one else. We can rely on what Christ 
says, and He says, " He that believeth on Me shall not perish, but 
have everlasting life. " Not that we are going to have it when we 
die, but right here to-day. 

— Now, I find a great many people who want some evidence 
that they have accepted the Son of God. My friends, if you want 
any evidence, take God's word for it. You can't find better evi- 
dence than that. You know that when the Angel Gabriel came 
down and told Zachariah he should have a son he wanted a 
further token than the angel's word. He asked Gabriel for it 
and he answered, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of 
the Lord." He had never been doubted, and he thundered out 
this to Zachariah. But he wanted a further token, and Gabriel 
said, "You shall have a token: you shall be dumb till your son 
shall be given you. " 



26 MOODY S ANECDOTES 



BELIEVE. 



Moody and the Dying Soldier. 

After the battle of Pittsburgh Landing and Murfreesboro' I 
was in a hospital at Murfreesboro'. And one night after mid- 
night, I was woke up and told that there was a man in one of the 
wards who wanted to see me. I went to him and he called me 
"chaplain" — I wasn't a chaplain — and he said he wanted me to 
help him die. And I said, " I'd take you right up in my arms and 
carry you into the kingdom of God if I could; but I can't do it; 
I can't help you to die." And he said, "Who can?" I said: "The 
Lord Jesus Christ can — He came for that purpose. " He shook 
his head and said, " He can't save me ; I have sinned all my life. " 
And I said, "But He came to save sinners." I thought of his 
mother in the North, and I knew that she was anxious that he 
should die right, and I thought I'd stay with him. I prayed two 
or three times, and repeated all the promises I could, and I knew 
that in a few hours he would be gone. I said I wanted to read 
him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious 
about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes 
were riveted on me, and when I came to the 14th and 15th 
verses, he caught up the words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that 
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal 
life." He stopped me and said, "Is that there?" I said "Yes," and 
he asked me to read it again, and I did so. He leaned his elbows 
on the cot and clasped his hands together and said, "That's good; 
won't you read it again." 

I read it the third time, and then went on with the rest of 
the chapter. When I finished, his eyes were closed, his hands 
were folded, and there was a smile on his face. Oh ! how it was 



Believe. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 27 

lit up ! What a change had come over it ! I saw his lips quiver- 
ing, and I leaned over him and heard, in a faint whisper, "As 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of 
Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." He opened his eyes and said, 
"That's enough; don't read any more." He lingered a few hours 
and then pillowed his head on those two verses, and then went 
up in one of Christ's chariots and took his seat in the Kingdom 
of God. 

You may spurn God's remedy and perish; but I tell you 
God don't want you to perish. He says, "As I live I have no 
pleasure in the death of the wicked." "Turn ye, turn ye, for why 
will ye die?" 

A Child at its Mother's Grave. 

I remember seeing a story some time ago in print. It has 
been in the papers, but it will not hurt us to hear it again. A 
family in a Southern city were stricken down with yellow fever. 
It was raging there, and there were very stringent sanitary rules. 
The moment anybody died, a cart went around and took the 
coffin away. The father was taken sick and died and was buried, 
and the mother was at last stricken down. The neighbors were 
afraid of the plague, and none dared go into the house. The 
mother had a little son and was anxious about her boy, and afraid 
he would be neglected when she was called away, so she called 
the little fellow to her bedside, and said, "My boy, I am going to 
leave you, but Jesus will come to you when I am gone. " The 
mother died, the cart came along and she was laid in the grave. 
The neighbors would have liked to take the boy, but were afraid 
of the pestilence. He wandered about and finally started up to the 
place where they had laid his mother and sat down on the grave 
and wept himself to sleep. Next morning he awoke and realized 
his position — alone and hungry. A stranger came along and see- 
ing the little fellow sitting on the ground, asked him what he was 
waiting for. The boy remembered what his mother had told him 
and answered, "I am waiting for Jesus," and told him the whole 



28 MOODY S ANECDOTES Believe. 

story. The man's heart was touched, tears trickled down his 
cheeks and he said, "Jesus has sent me," to which the boy 
replied, "You have been a good while coming, sir." He was pro- 
vided for. So it is with us. To wait for results, we must have 
courage and patience and God will help us. 



"You Know Me, Moody." 

Well, let me illustrate it then, and perhaps you will be able 
to understand it. Suppose I am dying with consumption, which 
I inherited from my father or mother. I did not get it by any 
fault of my own, by any neglect of my health ; I inherited it, let 
us suppose. Well, I go to my physician, and to the best phy- 
sicians, and they all give me up. They say I am incurable; I 
must die ; I have not thirty days to live. Well, a friend happens 
to come along and looks at me and says: "Moody, you have got 
the consumption." "I know it very well; I don't want any one 
to tell me that." "But," he says, "There is a remedy — a remedy, 
I tell you. Let me have your attention. I want to call your 
attention to it. I tell you there is a remedy." "But, sir, I don't 
believe it. I have tried the leading physicians in this country 
and in Europe, and they tell me there is no hope." "But you 
know me, Moody; you have known me for years." "Yes, sir." 
"Do you think, then, I would tell you a falsehood?" "No." 
"Well, ten years ago I was far gone. I was given up by the phy- 
sicians to die, but I took this medicine and it cured me. I am 
perfectly well — look at me." I say that it is a very strange case. 
"Yes, it may be strange, but it is a fact. That medicine cured 
me; take this medicine and it will cure you. Although it has 
cost me a great deal, it shall not cost you anything. Although 
the salvation of Jesus Christ is as free as the air, it cost God the 
richest jewel of heaven. He had to give his only Son; give all 
He had; He had only one Son, and He gave Him. Do not 
make light of it, then, I beg of you." "Well," I say, "I would 
like to believe you, but this is contrary to my reason." Hearing 
this, my friend goes away and brings another friend to me and he 
testifies to the same thing. He again goes away when I do not 



Believe. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 29 

yet believe, and brings in another, and another, and another, and 
they all testify to the same thing. They say they were as bad as 
myself; and they took the same medicine that has been ofifered 
to me, and it cured them. He then hands me the medicine. I 
dash it to the ground; I do not believe in its saving power: I die. 
The reason is, then, that I spurned the remedy. 

So it will not be because Adam fell, but that you spurn 
the remedy offered to you to save you. You will have darkness 
rather than light. How, then, shall ye escape if ye neglect so 
great salvation? There is no hope for you if you neglect the 
remedy. 

Rational Belief. 

Once there were a couple of men arranging a balloon ascen- 
sion. They thought they had two ropes fastened to the car, but 
one of them only was fastened, and they unfastened that one 
rope, and the balloon started to go up. One of the men seized 
hold of the car, and the other seized hold of the rope. Up went 
the balloon, and the man who seized hold of the car went up with 
it, and was lost. The man who laid hold of the rope was just as 
sincere as the man who laid hold of the car. There was just as 
much reason to say that the man who laid hold of that would be 
saved because he was sincere as the man who believed in a lie 
because he is sincere in his belief. I like a man to be able to 
give a reason for the faith that is in him. Once I asked a man 
what he believed, and he said he believed what his church be- 
lieved. I asked him what his church believed, and he said he 
supposed his church believed what he did, and that was all I could 
get out of him. And so men believe what other people believe 
and what their church believes, without really knowing what their 
church and other people do believe. 



GOLD. 

— God is truth. 

— What grounds have we for not believing God? 



3° MOODY S ANECDOTES 



THE BIBLE. 



"How Funny You Talk." 

No book in the world has been so misjudged as the Bible. 
Men judge it without reading it. Or perhaps they read a bit here 
and a bit there, and then close it saying, "It is so dark and mys- 
terious !" You take a book, now-a-days, and read it. Some one 
asks you what you think about it. "Well," you say, "I have only 
read it through once, not very carefully, and I should not like to 
give an opinion." Yet people take up God's book, read a few 
pages, and condemn the whole of it. Of all the skeptics and infidels 
I have ever met speaking against the Bible, I have never met one 
who read it through. There may be such men, but I have never 
met them. It is simply an excuse. There is no man living who 
will stand up before God and say that kept him out of the king- 
dom. It is the devil's work trying to make us believe it is not 
true, and that it is dark and mysterious. The only way to over- 
come the great enemy of souls is by the written Word of God. 
He knows that, and so tries to make men disbelieve it. As soon 
as a man is a true believer in the Word of God, he is a conqueror 
over Satan. Young man ! the Bible is true. What have these 
infidels to give you in its place? What has made England but 
the open Bible? Every nation that exalteth the Word of God is 
exalted, and every nation that casteth it down is cast down. Oh, 
let us cling close to the Bible. Of course, we shall not understand 
it all at once. But men are not to condemn it on that account. 
Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school 
to-morrow morning, and when he came home in the afternoon, 
say to him, "Willie, can you read? can you write? can you spell? 
Do you understand all about Algebra, Geometry, Hebrew, Latin, 
and Greek?" "Why, papa," the little fellow would say, "how 
funny you talk. I have been all day trying to learn the A B C !" 



The Bible. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 3 1 

Well, suppose I should reply, "If you have not finished your 
education, you need not go any more." What would you say? 
Why, you would say, I had gone mad. There would be just as 
much reason in that, as in the way that people talk about the 
Bible. My friends, the men who have studied the Bible for fifty 
years — the wise men and the scholars, the great theologians — ■ 
have never got down to the depths of it yet. There are truths 
there that the Church of God has been searching out for the last 
eighteen hundred years, but no man has fathomed the depths of 
that ever-living stream. 

"How Christ Expounded It." 

You will find Christ, after He had risen, again speaking 
about the Old Testament prophets: "And beginning at Moses, 
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scripture 
the things concerning Himself." Concerning Himself. Don't that 
settle the question? I tell you I am convinced in my mind that 
the Old Testament is as true as the New. "And He began at 
Moses and all the prophets." Mark that, "all the prophets." 
Then in the forty-fourth verse : "And He said unto them, these 
are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, 
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of 
Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning Me. 
Then opened He their understanding that they might understand 
the Scripture." 

The Scotch "Draw the Bible" on False Doctrine. 

There is no place I have ever been in where people so 
thoroughly understand their Bibles as in Scotland. Why, little 
boys could quote Scripture and take me up on a text. They 
have the whole nation just educated, as it were, with the Word 
of God. Infidelity cannot come there. A man got up in Glas- 
gow, at a corner, and began to preach universal salvation. "Oh, 
sir," said an old woman, "that will never save the like of me." 
She had heard enough preaching to know that it would never 
save her. If a man comes among them with any false doctrine, 



32 MOODYS ANECDOTES The Bible. 

these Scotchmen instantly draw their Bibles on him. I had to 
keep my eyes open and be careful what I said there. They knew 
their Bibles a good deal better than I did. And so if the preach- 
ers could get the people to read the Word of God more carefully, 
and note what they heard, there would not be so much infidelity 
among us. 

Moody and the Infidel. 

An infidel had come the other day, to one of our meetings, 
and when I talked with him, he replied that he didn't believe one- 
twelfth part of the Bible, but I kept on quoting Scripture, feeling 
that if the man didn't believe, God could do what He chose with 
His word, and make it quick and powerful, and sharper than a 
two-edged sword. The man kept saying that he did not believe 
what the Bible said, and I kept on quoting passage after passage 
of Scripture, and the man, who, two hours before, had entered 
the hall an infidel, went out of it a converted man, and a short 
time after his conversion he left the city for Boston, a Christian, 
to join his family in Europe. Before this gentleman went away, 
I asked him if he believed the Bible, and his reply was: "From 
back to back, every word of it." 



''Deluged with Blood." 

A good many years ago there was a convention held in 
France, and those who held it wanted to get the country to deny 
a God, to burn the Bible, wanted to say that men passed away 
like a dog and a dumb animal. What was the result ! Not long 
since, that country was filled with blood. Did you ever think 
what would take place if we could vote the Bible and the min- 
isters of the gospel and God out from among the people? My 
friends, the country would be deluged with blood. Your life and 
mine would not be safe in this city to-night. We could not walk 
through these streets with safety. We don't know how much we 
owe God and the influence of His gospel among even ungodly 
men. 



The Bible. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 33 

GOLD. 

— There are over two hundred passages in the Old Testament 
which prophesied about Christ, and every one of them has come 
true. 

— God didn't give the world two different Bibles; they are one, 
and must be believed from back to back, from Genesis to Reve- 
lations, or not at all. 

— I haven't found the first man who ever read the Bible from 
back to back carefully who remained an infidel. My friends, the 
Bible of our mothers and fathers is true. 

—The Word of God may be darkened to the natural man, but 
the way of Salvation is wiitten so plain, that the little child six 
years old can understand it if she will. 

— Set more and more store by the Bible. Then troubles in 
your Chirstian life will pass away like a morning cloud. You will 
feed and live on the Word of God, and it will become the joy of 
your soul. 

— There are dark and mysterious things in the Bible now, but 
when you begin to trust Christ your eyes will be opened and the 
Bible will be a new book to you. It will become the Book of 
books to you. 

— I notice if a man goes to cut up the Bible and comes to you 
with one truth and says, "I don't believe this, and I don't believe 
that, " — I notice when he begins to doubt portions of the Word 
of God he soon doubts it all. 

— If you will show me a Bible Christian living on the Word of 
God, I will show you a joyful man. He is mounting up all the 
time. He has got new truths that lift him up over every obstacle, 
and he mounts over difficulties higher and higher, like a man I 
once heard of who had a bag of gas fastened on either side, and 
if he just touched the ground with his foot, over a wall or a hedge 
he would go ; and so these truths make us so light that we bound 
over every obstacle. 

3 



34 MOODY S ANECDOTES 



BIBLE STUDY. 



How Moody was Blessed— " Mark Your Bible." 

I want to tell you how I was blessed a few years ago, upon 
hearing a discourse upon the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs. The 
speaker said the children of God were like four things. The first 
thing was : "The ants are a people not strong, " and he went on 
to compare the children of God to ants. He said the people of 
God were like ants. They pay no attention to the things of the 
present, but go on steadily preparing for the future. The next 
thing he compared them to was the conies. "The conies are but 
a feeble folk." It is a very weak little thing. "Well," said I, 
"I wouldn't like to be as a coney." But he went on to say that 
it built upon a rock. The children of God were very weak, but 
they laid their foundation upon a rock. "Well," said I, "I will 
be like a coney and build my hopes upon a rock. " Like the 
Irishman who said he trembled himself, but the rock upon which 
his house was built never did. The next thing the speaker com- 
pared them to was a locust. I didn't think much of locusts; and 
I thought I wouldn't care about being like one. But he went on 
to read, "They have no king, yet they go forth all of them by 
bands. " There were the Congregationalist, the Presbyterian, the 
Methodist bands going forth without a king, but by and by our 
King will come back again, and these bands will fly to Him. 
"Well, I will be like a locust; my King is away," I thought. The 
next comparison was a spider. I didn't like this at all, but he said 
if we went into a gilded palace filled with luxury, we might see a 
spider holding on to something, oblivious to all the luxury below. 
It was laying hold of the things above. "Well," said I, "I would 
like to be a spider. " I heard this a good many years ago, and 
I just put the speaker's name to it, and it makes a sermon. But 



Bible Study. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 35 

take your Bibles and mark them. Don't think of wearing them out. 
It is a rare thing to find a man wearing his Bible out now-a-days 
■ — and Bibles are cheap, too. You are living in a land where 
they are plenty. Study them and mark them, and don't be afraid 
of wearing them. 



Moody Visits Prang's Chromo Establishment. 

When I went to Boston, I went into Mr. Prang's chromo 
establishment. I wanted to know how the work was done. He 
took me to a stone several feet square, where he took the first 
impression, but when he took the paper off the stone I could see 
no sign of a man's face there. " Wait a little," he said. He took 
me to another stone, but when the paper was lifted I couldn't see 
any impression yet. He took me up, up to eight, nine, ten 
stones, and then I could see just the faintest outlines of a man's 
face. He went on till he got up to about the twentieth stone, 
and I could see the impression of a face, but he said it was not 
very correct yet. Well, he went on till he got up, I think, to the 
twenty-eighth stone, and a perfect face appeared, and it looked 
as if all it had to do was to speak and it would be human. If 
you read a chapter of the Bible and don't see anything in it, read 
it a second time, and if you cannot see anything in it read it a third 
time. Dig deep. Read it again and again, and even if you have 
to read it twenty-eight times do so, and you will see the Man 
Christ Jesus, for He is in every page of the Word. 



Get the Key to Job. 

An Englishman asked me some time ago, "Do you know 
much about Job?" "Well, I know a little," I replied. "If 
you've got the key of Job, you've got the key to the whole Bible. " 
"What?" I replied, "I thought it was a poetical book. " "Well, " 
said he, "I will just divide Job into seven heads. The first is the 
perfect man — untried; and that is Adam and Eve before they felL 
The second head is tried by adversity — Adam after the fall. The 
third is the wisdom of the world — the three friends who came to 



36 MOODY S ANECDOTES Bible Study. 

try to help Job out of his difficulties. They had no power to 
help him at all." He could stand his scolding wife, but he could 
not stand them. The fourth head takes the form of the Media- 
tor, and in the fifth head God speaks at last. He heard him 
before by the ear, but he hears Him now by the soul, and he fell 
down flat upon his face. A good many men in Chicago are like 
Job. They think they are mighty good men, but the moment 
they hear the voice of God they know they are sinners, they are 
in the dust. There isn't much talk about their goodness then. 
Here he was with his face down. Job learned his lesson. That 
was the sixth head, and in these heads were the burdens of 
Adam's sin. The seventh head was when God showed him His 
face. Well, I learned the key to the Bible. I cannot tell how 
this helped me. I told it to another man, and he asked me if I 
ever thought how he got his property back and his sheep back. 
He gave Job double what he had and gave him ten children 
besides, so that he should have ten in heaven besides his ten on 
earth. 

One Book at a time. 

I have found it a good plan to take up one book at a time. 
It is a good deal better to study one book at a time than to run 
through the Bible. If we study one book and get its key, it will, 
perhaps, open up others. Take up the book of Genesis, and 
you will find eight beginnings; or, in other words, you pick up 
the key of several books. The gospel was written that man might 
believe on Jesus Christ, and every chapter speaks of Him. Now, 
take the book of Genesis ; it says it is the book of beginnings. 
That is the key; then the book of Exodus — it is the book of 
redemption; that is the key word of the whole. Take up the 
book of Leviticus, and we find that it is the book of sacrifices. 
And so on through all the different books ; you will find each one 
with a key. Another thing : We must study it unbiased. A great 
many people believe certain things. They believe in certain 
creeds and doctrines, and they run through the book to get Scrip- 
ture in accordance with them. If a man is a Calvinistic man he 



Bible Study. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 3 7 

wants to find something in accordance with his doctrine. But if 
we go to seek truth the Spirit of God will come. Don't seek it 
in the blue light of Presbyterianism, in the red light of Meth- 
odism, or in the light of Episcopalianism, but study it in the light 
of Calvary. 



Note what Jesus Says. 

Some people say to me, "Moody, you don't believe in the 
flood. All the scientific men tell us it is absurd. " Let them tell 
us. Jesus tells us of it, and I would rather take the word of 
Jesus than that of any other one. I haven't got much respect 
for those men who dig down for stones with shovels, in order to 
take away the word of God. Men don't believe in the story of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, but we have it sealed in the New Testa- 
ment. "As it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. " They 
don't believe in Lot's wife, but He says, "Remember Lot's wife." 
So there is not a thing that men to-day cavil at but the Son of 
God indorses. They don't believe in the swallowing of Jonah. 
They say it is impossible that a whale could swallow Jonah — its 
throat is too small. They forget that the whale was prepared for 
Jonah; as the colored woman said, "Why, God could prepare a 
man to swallow a whale, let alone a whale to swallow a man." 



One Word. 



I remember I took up the word "love," and turned to the 
Scriptures and studied it, and got so that I felt I loved everybody, 
I got full of it. When I went on the street, I felt as if I loved 
everybody I saw. It ran out of my fingers. Suppose you take 
up the subject of love and study it up. You will get so full of it 
that all you have got to do is to open your lips and a flood of the 
love of God flows upon the meeting. If you go into a court you 
will find a lawyer pleading a case. He gets everything bearing 
upon one point, heaped up so as to carry his argument with all 
the force he can, in order to convince the jury. Now it seems to 
me a man should do the same in talking to an audience; just 



3% MOODY'S ANECDOTES Bible Study. 

think that he has a jury before him, and he wants to convict a 
sinner. If it is love, get all you can upon the subject and talk 
love, love. 



The "I Ams," "I Wills," Etc. 

A favorite way to study the Bible with me, is first to take up 
one expression, and run through the different places where they 
are found. Take the " I ams " of John ; "I am the bread of life ; " 
"I am the water of life;" " I am the way, the truth, and the life;" 
"I am the resurrection;" "I am all, and in all." God gives to 
His children a blank, and on it they can write whatever they 
most want, and He will fill the bill. And then the promises. A 
Scotchman found out thirty one thousand distinct promises in the 
Word of God. There is not a despondent soul but God has a 
promise just to suit him. 



GOLD. 

— The best truths are got by digging deep for them. 

— When we know our Bible, then it is that God can use us. 

— When we find a man meditating on the words of God, my 
friends, that man is full of boldness and is successful. 

— When a man is filled with the Word of God you cannot keep 
him still. If a man has got the Word, he must speak or die. 

— Let us have one day exclusively to study and read the Word 
of God. If we can't take time during the week, we will have 
Sunday uninterrupted. 

— Now, as old Dr. Bonner, of Glasgow, said, "The Lord didn't 
tell Joshua how to use the sword, but He told him how he should 
meditate on the Lord day and night, and then he would have 
good success." 

— One thing I have noticed in studying the Word of God, and 
that is, when a man is filled with the Spirit he deals largely with 
the Word of God, whereas the man who is filled with his own 
ideas refers rarely to the Word of God. He gets along without 
it, and you seldom see it mentioned in his discourses. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 39 



BLIND. 



A Mother's Mistake. 

While I was attending a meeting in a certain city sometime 
ago a lady came to me and said: "I want you to go home with 
me ; I have something to say to you. " When we reached her 
home, there were some friends there. After they had retired, 
she put her arms on the table, and tears began to come into her 
eyes, but with an effort she repressed her emotion. After a strug- 
gle she went on to say that she was going to tell me something 
which she had never told any other living person. I should not 
tell it now, but she has gone to another world. She said she had 
a son in Chicago, and she was very anxious about him. When 
he was young he got interested in religion at the rooms of the 
Young Men's Christian Association. He used to go out in the 
street and circulate tracts. He was her only son, and she was 
very ambitious that he should make a name in the world, and 
wanted him to get into the very highest circles. Oh, what a mis- 
take people make about these highest circles. Society is false ; 
it is a sham. She was deceived like a good many more votaries 
of fashion and hunters after wealth at the present time. She 
thought it was beneath her son to go down and associate with 
those young men who hadn't much money. She tried to get him 
away from them, but they had more influence than she had, and, 
finally, to break his whole association, she packed him off to a 
boarding-school. He went soon to Yale College, and she sup- 
posed he got into one of those miserable secret societies there 
that have ruined so many young men, and the next thing she 
heard was that the boy had gone astray. 

She began to write letters urging him to come into the King- 
dom of God, but she heard that he tore the letters up without 



40 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Blind. 

reading them. She went to him to try and regain whatever in- 
fluence she possessed over him, but her efforts were useless, and 
she came home with a broken heart. He left New Haven, and 
for two years they heard nothing of him. At last they heard he 
was in Chicago, and his father found him and gave him $30,000 
to start in business. They thought it would change him, but it 
didn't. They asked me when I went back to Chicago to try and 
use my influence with him. I got a friend to invite him to his 
house one night, where I intended to meet him, but he heard I 
was to be there, and did not come near, like a good many 
other young men, who seem to be afraid of me. I tried many 
times to reach him, but could not. While I was traveling one 
day on the New Haven Railroad, I bought a New York paper, 
and in it I saw a dispatch saying he had been drowned in Lake 
Michigan. His father came on to find his body, and, after con- 
siderable searching, they discovered it. All his clothes and his 
body were covered with sand. The body was taken home to that 
broken-hearted mother. She said "If I thought he was in heaven 
I would have peace. " Her disobedience of God's law came back 
upon her. 

So, my friends, if you have a boy impressed with the gospel, 
help him to come to Christ. Bring him in the arms of your faith, 
and He will unite you closer to him. 



"Pull for the Shore." 

Look at that man in a boat on Niagara River. He is only 
about a mile from the rapids. A man on the bank shouts to him, 
"Young man, young man, the rapids are not far away; you'd better 
pull for the shore." "You attend to your own business; I will 
take care of myself, " he replies. Like a great many people here, 
and ministers, too, they don't want any evangelist here — don't 
want any help, however great the danger ahead. On he goes, 
sitting coolly in his boat. Now he has got a little nearer, and a 
man from the bank of the river sees his danger, and shouts : 
"Stranger, you'd better pull for the shore; if you go further, you'll 
be lost. You can be saved now if you pull in." "Mind your 



Blind. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 41 

business, and you'll have enough to do ■ I'll take care of myself. " 
Like a good many men, they are asleep to the danger that's hang- 
ing over them while they are in the current. And I say, drinking 
young man, don't you think you are standing still. You are in 
the current, and if you don't pull for a rock of safety you will go 
over the precipice. On he goes. I can see him in the boat 
laughing at the danger. A man on the bank is looking at him, 
and he lifts up his voice and cries, "Stranger, stranger, pull for 
the shore; if you don't you'll lose your life"; and the young man 
laughs at him — mocks him. That is the way with hundreds in 
Chicago. If you go to them and point out their danger, they 
will jest and joke at you. By and by he says: "I think I hear 
the rapids — yes, I hear them roar;" and he seizes his oars and 
pulls with all his strength, but the current is too great, and nearer 
and nearer he is drawn on to that abyss, until he gives one un- 
earthly scream, and over he goes. Ah, my friends, this is the 
case with hundreds in this city. They are in the current of riches 
of pleasure, of drink, that will take them to the whirlpool. 



A Blind Man Preaches to 3,000,000 People. 

I was at a meeting in London, when I was there, and I heard 
a man speaking with wonderful power and earnestness. "Who is 
that man?" I asked, my curiosity being excited. "Why, that is 

Dr. . He is blind." I felt some interest in this man, and at 

the close of the meeting, I sought an interview, and he told me 
that he had been stricken blind when very young. His mother 
took him to a doctor, and asked him about his sight. " You must give 
up all hope," the doctor said. "Your boy is blind, and will be 
forever." "What, do you think my boy will never see?" asked 
his mother. "Never again. " The mother took her boy to her 
bosom and cried, "Oh, my boy, who will take care of you when 
I am gone? Who will look to you?" — forgetting the faithfulness of 
that God she had taught him to love. He became a servant of 
the Lord and was permitted to print the Bible in twelve different 
languages, printed in the raised letters, so that all the blind people 
could read the Scriptures themselves. He had a congregation, 



42 MOODY S ANECDOTES Blind. 

my friends, of three millions of people, and I think that blind 
man was one of the happiest beings in all London. He was nat- 
urally blind, but he had eyes to his soul, and could see a bright 
eternity in the future. He had built his foundation upon the 
living God. We pity those who have not their natural sight; but 
how you should pity yourself if you are spiritually blind. 



Money Blind. 

I heard of a man who had accumulated great wealth, and 
death came upon him suddenly, and he realized, as the saying is, 
that "there was no bank in the shroud," that he couldn't take 
anything away with him; we may have all the money on earth, 
but we must leave it behind us. He called a lawyer in and com- 
menced to will away his property before he went away. His 
little girl couldn't understand exactly where he was going, and 
she said, " Father, have you got a home in that land you are going 
to?" The arrow went down to his soul. "Got a home there?" 
The rich man had hurled away God and neglected to secure a 
home there for the sake of his money, and he found it was now 
too late. He was money mad, he was money blind. 



GOLD. 

— Now I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but one 
thing I can predict; that every one of our new converts that 
goes to studying his Bible, and loves this book above every other 
book, is sure to hold out. The world will have no charm for him ; 
he will get the world under his feet, because in this book he will 
find something better than the world can give him. 

— What can botanists tell you of the lily of the valley? You 
must study this book for that. What can geologists tell you of 
the Rock of Ages, or mere astronomers about the Bright Morn- 
ing Star? In those pages we find all knowledge unto salvation; 
here we read of the ruin of man by nature, redemption by the 
blood, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost. These three things 
run all through and through them. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 43 



THE BLOOD. 



A Mother Dies that her Boy may Live. 

When the California gold fever broke out, a man went there, 
leaving his wife in New England with his boy. As soon as he 
got on and was successful he was to send for them. It was a long 
time before he succeeded, but at last he got money enough to 
send for them. The wife's heart leaped for joy. She took her 
boy to New York, got on board a Pacific steamer, and sailed 
away to San Francisco. They had not been long at sea before 
the cry of " Fire ! fire ! " rang through the ship, and rapidly it 
gained on them. There was a powder magazine on board, and 
the captain knew the moment the fire reached the powder, every 
man, woman, and child must perish. They got out the life-boats, 
but they were too small ! In a minute they were overcrowded. 
The last one was just pushing away, when the mother pled with 
them to take her and her boy. "No," they said, "we have got as 
many as we can hold." She entreated them so earnestly, that at 
last they said they would take one more. Do you think she 
leaped into that boat and left her boy to die? No! She 
seized her boy, gave him one last hug, kissed him, and dropped 
him over into the boat. "My boy," she said, "if you live to see 
your father, tell him that I died in your place. " That is a faint 
type of what Christ has done for us. He laid down his life for 
us. He died that we might live. Now will you not love Him? 
What would you say of that young man if he should speak con- 
temptuously of such a mother ! She went down to a watery grave 
to save her son. Well, shall we speak contemptuously of such a 
Saviour? May God make us loyal to Christ! My friends, you 
will need Him one day. You will need Him when you come to 
cross the swellings of Jordan. You will need Him when you 



44 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES The Blood. 

stand at the bar of God. May God forbid that when death 
draws nigh it should find you making light of the precious blood 
of Christ! 

A Man Drinks up a Farm. 

A few years ago, I was going away to preach one Sunday 
morning, when a young man drove up in front of us. He had 
an aged woman with him. "Who is that young man? ".I asked. 
"Do you see that beautiful meadow?" said my friend, "and that 
land there with the house upon it?" "Yes." "His father drank 
that all up, " said he. Then he went on to tell me all about him. 
His father was a great drunkard, squandered his property, died, 
and left his wife in the poor-house. "And that young man," he 
said, "is one of the finest young men I ever knew. He has toiled 
hard and earned money, and bought back the land; he has taken 
his mother out of the poor-house, and now he is taking her to 
church. " I thought, that is an illustration for me. The first Adam 
in Eden sold us for naught, but the Messiah, the second Adam, 
came and bought us back again. The first Adam brought us to 
the poor-house, as it were; the second Adam makes us kings and 
priests unto God. That is redemption. We get in Christ all that 
Adam lost, and more. Men look on the blood of Christ with 
scorn and contempt, but the time is coming when the blood of 
Christ will be worth more than all the kingdoms of the world. 



All Right or all Wrong. 

I remember when in the old country a young man came to 
me — a minister — and said he wanted to talk with me. He said to 
me: "Mr. Moody, you are either all right and I am all wrong, 
or else I am right, and you are all wrong." "Well, sir," said I, 
"You have the advantage of me. You have heard me preach, 
and know what doctrines I hold, whereas I have not heard you, 
and don't know what you preach." "Well," said he, "the differ- 
ence between your preaching and mine is that you make out 
that salvation is got by Christ's death, and I make out that it is 
attained by His life." "Now, what do you do with the passages 



The Blood. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 45 

bearing upon the death?" and I quoted the passages, "Without 
the shedding of blood there is no remission," and "He Himself 
bore our own sins by His own body on the tree, " and asked him 
what he did with them, for instance. "Never preach them at all." 
I quoted a number of passages more, and he gave me the same 
answer. "Well, what do you preach?" I finally asked. "Moral 
essays," he replied. Said I, "Did you ever know anybody to be 
saved by that kind of thing did you ever convert anybody by 
them?" "I never aimed at that kind of conversion; I meant to 
get men to heaven by culture — by refinement." "Well," said I, "if 
I didn't preach those texts, and only preached culture, the whole 
thing would be a sham." "And it is a sham to me," was his reply. 
I tell you the moment a man breaks away from this doctrine of 
blood, religion becomes a sham, because the whole teaching of 
this book is of one story, and this is, that Christ came into the 
world and died for our sins. 



The Fettered Bird Freed. 

A friend in Ireland once met a little Irish boy who had caught 
a sparrow. The poor little bird was trembling in his hand, and 
seemed very anxious to escape. The gentleman begged the boy 
to let it go, as the bird could not do him any good; but the boy 
said he would not, for he had chased it three hours before he could 
catch it. He tried to reason it out with the boy, but in vain. At 
last he offered to buy the bird; the boy agreed to the price, and it 
was paid. Then the gentleman took the poor little thing and held 
it out on his hand. The boy had been holding it very fast, for 
the boy was stronger than the bird, just as Satan is stronger than 
we, and there it sat for a time, scarcely able to realize the fact 
that it had got liberty; but in a little while it flew away, chirping, 
as if to say to the gentleman, "Thank you! thank you! you have 
redeemed me." That is what redemption is — buying back and 
setting free. So Christ came back to break the fetters of sin, to 
open the prison doors and set the sinner free. This is the good 
news, the gospel of Christ — "Ye are not redeemed with corruptible 
things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." 



46 MOODY *S ANECDOTES The Blood. 

GOLD. 

— The most solemn truth in the gospel is that the only thing 
Christ left down here is His blood. 

— A man who covers up the cross, though he may be an intel- 
lectual man, and draw large crowds, will have no life there, and 
his church will be but a gilded sepulcher. 

— There is either of two things we must do. One is to send 
back the message to heaven that we don't want the blood of 
Christ to cleanse us of our sin, or else accept it. 

— Into every house where the blood was not sprinkled, the 
destroying angel came. But wherever the blood was on door- 
post and lintel, whether they had worked much, or whether they 
had worked none, God passed them over. 

— A man who has not realized what the blood has done for him 
has not the token of salvation. It is told of Julian, the apostate, 
that while he was fighting he received an arrow in his side. He 
pulled it out, and, taking a handful of blood threw it into the air 
and cried, "Galilean, Galilean, thou hast conquered." 

— Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed his spear into the 
very heart of the God-man. What a hellish deed ! But what 
was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! 
Oh ! thank God, the blood covers sin. There was the blood cov- 
ering that spear — the very point of it. The very crowning act 
of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of 
wickedness was the crowning act of grace. 

— It is said that old Dr. Alexander, of Princeton College, when 
a young student used to start out to preach, always gave them a 
piece of advice. The old man would stand with his gray locks 
and his venerable face and say: "Young man, make much of 
the blood in your ministry. " Now, I have traveled considerable 
during the past few years, and never met. a minister who made 
much of the blood and much of the atonement but God had 
blessed his ministry, and souls were born into the light by it. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 4 7 



CHILD STORIES. 



"Little Moody." 

I remember when I was a boy I went several miles from 
home with an older brother. That seemed to me the longest 
visit of my life. It seemed that I was then further away from 
home than I had ever been before, or have ever been since. 
While we were walking down the street we saw an old man com- 
ing toward us, and my brother said, "There is a man that will give 
you a cent. He gives every new boy that comes into this town 
a cent. " That was my first visit to the town, and when the old 
man got opposite to us he looked around, and my brother not 
wishing me to lose the cent, and to remind the old man that I 
had not received it, told him that I was a new boy in the town. 
The old man, taking off my hat, placed his trembling hand on my 
head, and told me I had a Father in heaven. It was a kind, 
simple act, but I feel the pressure of the old man's hand upon my 
head to-day. You don't know how much you may do by just 
speaking kindly. 

"Won by a Smile." 

In London, in 1872, one Sunday morning a minister said to 
me, "I want you to notice that family there in one of the front 
seats, and when we go home I want to tell you their story. " 
When we got home I asked him for the story, and he said, "All 
that family were won by a smile." "Why," said I, "how's that?" 
"Well," said he, "as I was walking down a street one day I saw 
a child at a window; it smiled, and I smiled, and we bowed. So 
it was the second time ; I bowed, she bowed. It was not long 
before there was another child, and I had got in a habit of look- 



43 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

ing and bowing, and pretty soon the group grew, and at last, as 
I went by, a lady was with them. I didn't know what to do. 
I didn't want to bow to her, but I knew the children expected it, 
and so I bowed to them all. And the mother saw I was a minis- 
ter, because I carried a Bible every Sunday morning. So the 
children followed me the next Sunday and found I was a minister. 
And they thought I was the greatest preacher, and their parents 
must hear me. A minister who is kind to a child and gives him 
a pat on the head, why the children will think he is the greatest 
preacher in the world. Kindness goes a great way. And to 
make a long story short, the father and mother and five children 
were converted, and they are going to join our church next 
Sunday. " 

Won to Christ by a smile ! We must get the wrinkles out of 
our brows, and we must have smiling faces. 



A Little Boy's Experience. 

One day as a young lady was walking up the street, she saw 
a little boy running out of a shoemaker's shop, and behind him was 
the old shoemaker chasing him with a wooden last in his hand. 
He had not run far until the last was thrown at him, and he was 
struck in the back. The boy stopped and began to cry. The 
Spirit of the Lord touched that young lady's heart, and she went 
to where he was. She stepped up to him, and asked him if he 
was hurt. He told her it was none of her business. She went to 
work then to win that boy's confidence. She asked him if he 
went to school. He said, "No." "Well, why don't you go to 
school?" "Don't want to." She asked him if he would not like 
to go to Sunday school. "If you will come," she said, "I will 
tell you beautiful stories and read nice books. " She coaxed and 
pleaded with him, and at last said that if he would consent to go, 
she would meet him on the corner of a street which they should 
agree upon. He at last consented, and the next Sunday, true to 
his promise, he waited for her at the place designated. She took 
him by the hand and led him into the Sabbath-school. "Can 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 49 

you give me a place to teach this little boy?" she asked of the 
superintendent. 

He looked at the boy, but they didn't have any such look- 
ing little ones in the school. A place was found, however, and 
she sat down in the corner and tried to win that soul for Christ. 
Many would look upon that with contempt, but she had got 
something to do for the Master. The little boy had never heard 
anybody sing so sweetly before. When he went home he was 
asked where he had been. " Been among the angels, " he told his 
mother. He said he had been to the Protestant Sabbath-school, 
but his father and mother told him he must not go there any more 
or he would get a flogging. The next Sunday he went, and when 
he came home he got the promised flogging. He went the sec- 
ond time and got a flogging, and also a third time with the same 
result. At last he said to his father, " I wish you would flog me 
before I go, and then I won't have to think of it when I am there. " 
The father said, "If you go to that Sabbath-school again I will 
kill you. " It was the father's custom to send his son out on the 
street to sell articles to the passers-by, and he told the boy that 
he might have the profits of what he sold on Saturday. The 
little fellow hastened to the young lady's house and said to her, 
" Father said that he would give me every Saturday to myself, and 
if you will just teach me, then I will come to your house every 
Saturday afternoon." I wonder how many young ladies there are 
that would give up their Saturday afternoons just to lead one boy 
into the kingdom of God. Every Saturday afternoon that little 
boy was there at her house, and she tried to tell him the way to 
Christ. She labored with him, and at last the light of God's 
spirit broke upon his heart. 

One day while he was selling his wares at the railroad station, 
a train of cars approached unnoticed and passed over both his 
legs. A physician was summoned, and the first thing after he 
arrived, the little sufferer looked up into his face and said, "Doc- 
tor, will I live to get home?" "No," said the doctor, "you are 
dying." "Will you tell my mother and father that I died a Chris- 
tian?" They bore home the boy's corpse and with it the last 

4 



r , 



50 MOOD Y'S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

message that he died a Christian. Oh, what a noble work was 
that young lady's in saving that little wanderer ! How precious 
the remembrance to her ! When she goes to heaven she will not 
be a stranger there. He will take her by the hand and lead her 
to the throne of Christ. She did the work cheerfully. Oh, 
may God teach us what our work is that we may do it for His 
glory. 

Love. 

In our city a few years ago there was a little boy who went 
to one of the mission Sunday-schools. His father moved to an- 
other part of the city about five miles away, and every Sunday 
that boy came past thirty or forty Sunday-schools to the one he 
attended. And one Sunday a lady who was out collecting schol- 
ars for a Sunday-school met him and asked why he went so far, 
past so many schools. "There are plenty of others," said she, 
"just as good." He said, "They may be as good, but they are not 
so good for me. " "Why not?" she asked. "Because they love 
a fellow over there," he answered. Ah! love won him. "Because 
they love a fellow over there!" How easy it is to reach people 
through love ! Sunday-school teachers should win the affections 
of their scholars if they wish to lead them to Christ. 



A Little Boy Converts his Mother. 

I remember when on the North Side I tried to reach a fam- 
ily time and again and failed. One night in the meeting, I noticed 
one of the little boys of that family. He hadn't come for any 
good, however; he was sticking pins in the backs of the other 
boys. I thought if I could get hold of him it would do good. I 
used always to go to the door and shake hands with the boys, 
and when I got to the door and saw this little boy coming out, I 
shook hands with him, and patted him on the head, and said I 
was glad to see him, and hoped he would come again. He hung 
his head and went away. The next night, however, he came 
back, and he behaved better than he did the previous night. He 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 51 

came two or three times after, and then asked us to pray for him 
that he might become a Christian. That was a happy night for 
me. He became a Christian and a good one. One night I saw 
him weeping. I wondered if his old temper had got hold of him 
again, and when he got up I wondered what he was going to say. 
"I wish you would pray for my mother," he said. When the 
meeting was over I went to him and asked, "Have you ever 
spoken to your mother or tried to pray with her?" "Well, you 
know, Mr. Moody," he replied, "I never had an opportunity; she 
don't believe, and won't hear me." "Now," I said, "I want you 
to talk to your mother to-night." For years I had been trying to 
reach her and couldn't do it. 

So I urged him to talk to her that night, and I said "I will 
pray for you both. " When he got to the sitting-room he found 
some people there, and he sat waiting for an opportunity, when 
his mother said it was time for him to go to bed. He went to the 
door undecided. He took a step, stopped, and turned around, 
and hesitated for a minute, then ran to his mother and threw his 
arms around her neck, and buried his face in her bosom. "What 
is the matter?" she asked — she thought he was sick. Between 
his sobs he told his mother how for five weeks he had wanted to 
be a Christian; how he had stopped swearing; how he was trying 
to be obedient to her, and how happy he would be if she would 
be a Christian, and then went off to bed. She sat for a few min- 
utes, but couldn't stand it, and went up to his room. When she 
got to the door she heard him weeping and praying, ''Oh, God, 
convert my dear mother. " She came down again, but couldn't 
sleep that night. Next day she told the boy to go and ask Mr. 
Moody to come over and see her. He called at my place of 
business — I was in business then — and I went over as quick as I 
could. I found her sitting in a rocking-chair weeping. "Mr. 
Moody," she said, "I want to become a Christian." "What has 
brought that change over you, I thought you didn't believe in it?" 
Then she told me how her boy had come to her, and how she 
hadn't slept any all night, and how her sin rose up before her like 
a dark mountain. The next Sunday that boy came and led that 



5 2 MOOD YS ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

mother into the Sabbath-school, and she became a Christian 
worker. 

Oh, little children, if you find Christ tell it to your fathers 
and mothers. Throw your arms around their necks and lead 
them to Jesus. 

A Father's Mistake. 

There is a little story that has gone the round of the Amer- 
ican press that made a great impression upon me as a father. A 
father took his little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it 
being a hot day, he lay down under a beautiful shady tree. The 
little child ran about gathering wild flowers and little blades of 
grass, and coming to its father and saying, "Pretty! pretty!" At 
last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little child 
wandered away. When he awoke, his first thought was, "Where 
is my child?" He looked all around, but he could not see him. 
He shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard was the echo 
of his own voice. Running to a little hill, he looked around and 
shouted again. No response! Then going to a precipice at 
some distance, he looked down, and there, upon the rocks and 
briars, he saw the mangled form of his loved child. He rushed 
to the spot, took up the lifeless corpse, and hugged it to his 
bosom, and accused himself of being the murderer of his child. 
While he was sleeping his child had wandered over the precipice. 
I thought as I heard that, what a picture of the church of God ! 

How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men, 
are sleeping now while their children wander over the terrible 
precipice right into the bottomless pit. Father, where is your 
boy to-night? 

A Boy's Mistake— -A Sad Reconciliation. 

There was an Englishman who had an only son ; and only 
sons are often petted, and humored, and ruined. This boy be- 
came very headstrong, and very often he and his father had 
trouble. One day they had a quarrel, and the father was very 
angry, and so was the son; and the father said he wished the boy 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 53 

would leave home and never come back. The boy said he would 
go, and would not come into his father's house again till he sent 
for him. The father said he would never send for him. Well, 
away went the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother 
does not. You mothers will understand that, but the fathers may 
not. You know there is no love on earth so strong as a mother's 
love. A great many things may separate a man and his wife; a 
great many things may separate a father from his son ; but there 
is nothing in the wide world that can ever separate a true mother 
from her child. To be sure, there are some mothers that have 
drank so much liquor that they have drunk up all their affection. 
But I am talking about a true mother; and she would never cast 
off her boy. 

Well, the mother began to write and plead with the boy to 
write to his father first, and he would forgive him ; but the boy 
said, " I will never go home till father asks me. " Then she pled 
with the father, but the father said, "No, I will never ask him." 
At last the mother came down to her sick-bed, broken-hearted, 
and when she was given up by the physicians to die, the husband, 
anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted to know if there was noth- 
ing he could do for her before she died. The mother gave him a 
look; he well knew what it meant. Then she said, "Yes, there is 
one thing you can do. You can send for my boy. That is the 
only wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not pity him and 
love him when I am dead and gone, who will?" "Well," said the 
father, " I will send word to him that you want to see him. " 
"No," she says, "you know he will not come for me. If ever I 
see him you must send for him. " 

At last the father went to his office and wrote a dispatch in 
his own name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he got 
the invitation from his father he started off to see his dying mother. 
When he opened the door to go in he found his mother dying, 
and his father by the bedside. The father heard the door open, 
and saw the boy, but instead of going to meet him, he went to 
another part of the room, and refused to speak to him. His 
mother seized his hand — how she had longed to press it ! She 



54 MOODY S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

kissed him, and then said, "Now, my son, just speak to your 
father. You speak first, and it will all be over. " But the boy 
said, "No, mother, I will not speak to him until he speaks to 
me." She took her husband's hand in one hand and the boy's 
in the other, and spent her dying moments in trying to bring 
about a reconciliation. Then just as she was expiring — she could 
not speak — so she put the hand of the wayward boy into the hand 
of the father, and passed away ! The boy looked at the mother, 
and the father at the wife, and at last the father's heart broke, 
and he opened his arms, and took that boy to his bosom, and by 
that body they were reconciled. Sinner, that is only a faint type, 
a poor illustration, because God is not angry with you. 

I bring you to-night to the dead body of Christ. I ask you 
to look at the wounds in his hands and feet, and the wound in 
his side. And I ask you, "Will you not be reconciled?"^ 



Moody and his Little Willie. 
I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before 
the Chicago fire, "I am coming home this afternoon to give you 
a ride." My little boy clapped his hands. "Oh, papa, will you 
take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park?" "Yes." You know 
boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had not been gone long 
when my little boy said, "Mamma, I wish you would get me 
ready." "Oh," she said, "it will be a long time before papa 
comes." "But I want to get ready, mamma." At last he was 
ready to have the ride, face washed, and clothes all nice and 
clean. "Now, you must take good care and not get yourself 
dirty again," said mamma. Oh, of course he was going to take 
care ; he wasn't going to get dirty. So off he ran to watch for 
me. However, it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and 
after a little he began to play. When I got home, I found him 
outside, with his face all covered with dirt. "I can't take you to 
the Park that way, Willie." "Why, papa? you said you would 
take me." "Ah, but I can't; you're all over mud. I couldn't be 
seen with such a dirty little boy." "Why, I'se clean, papa; 
mamma washed me." "Well, you've got dirty since." But he 



Child Stories. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 5 5 

began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was dirty. 
" I'se clean • mamma washed me !" he cried. Do you think I ar- 
gued with him? No. I just took him up in my arms, and car- 
ried him into the house, and showed him his face in the looking- 
glass. He had not a word to say. He could not take my word 
for it ; but one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for him- 
self. He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that ! 

Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty — 
but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. Yet 
that is just what thousands of people do. The law is the look- 
ing-glass to see ourselves in, to show us how vile and worthless 
we are in the sight of God; but they take the law and try to wash 
themselves with it. 



Jesus " Wants them All to Come." 

I heard of a Sunday-school concert at which a little child of 
eight was going to recite. Her mother had taught her, and when 
the night came the little thing was trembling so she could scarcely 
speak. She commenced, "Jesus said," and completely broke 
down. Again she tried it: "Jesus said suffer," but she stopped 
once more. A third attempt was made by her, "Suffer little 
children — and don't anybody stop them, for He wants them all 
to come, " and that is the truth. There is not a child who has a 
parent in the Tabernacle but He wants, and if you but bring 
them in the arms of your faith and ask the Son of God to bless 
them and train them in the knowledge of God, and teach them 
as you walk your way, as you lie down at night, as you rise up in 
the morning, they will be blessed. 



Never to See its Mother. 

I was in an infirmary not long since, and a mother brought 
a little child in. She said, "Doctor, my little child's eyes have 
not been opened for several days, and I would just like you to do 
something for them." The doctor got some ointment and put it 
first on one and then on the other, and just pulled them open. 



56 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

"Your child is blind," said the doctor; "perfectly blind; it will 
never see again." At first the mother couldn't take it in, but 
after a little she cast an appealing look upon that physician, and 
in a voice full of emotion, said, "Doctor, you don't mean to say 
that my child will never see again?" "Yes," replied the doctor, 
"your child has lost its sight, and will never see again. " And 
that mother just gave a scream, and drew that child to her bosom. 
"O my darling child," sobbed the woman, "are you never to see 
the mother that gave you birth? never to see the world again?" 
I could not keep back the tears when I saw the terrible agony of 
that woman when she realized the misfortune that had come upon 
her child. That was a terrible calamity, to grope in total dark- 
ness through this world ; never to look upon the bright sky, the 
green fields; never to see the faces of loved ones; but what was 
it in comparison to the loss of a soul? I would rather have my 
eyes plucked out of my head and go down to my grave in total 
blindness than lose my soul. 



A Little Child Converts an Infidel. 

I remember hearing of a Sabbath-school teacher who had 
led every one of her children to Christ. She was a faithful 
teacher. Then she tried to get her children to go out and bring 
other children into the school. One day one of them came and 
said she had been trying to get the children of a family to come 
to the school, but the father was an infidel, and he wouldn't allow 
it. "What is an infidel?" asked the child. She had never heard 
of an infidel before. The teacher w^nt on to tell her what an 
infidel man was, and she was perfectly shocked. A few morn- 
ings after the girl happened to be going past the postoffice on her 
way to school, and she saw the infidel father coming out. She 
went up to him and said, "Why don't you love Jesus?" If it had 
been a man who had said that to him probably he would have 
knocked him down. He looked it her and walked on. A sec- 
ond time she put the question, fWhy don't you love Jesus?" 
He put out his hand to put her gently away from him, when, on 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 57 

looking down, he saw her tears. "Please, sir, tell me why you 
don't love Jesus?" He pushed her aside and away he went. 
When he got to his office he couldn't get this question out of his 
mind. All the letteis seemed to read, "Why don't you love 
Jesus?" All men in his place of business seemed to say, "Why 
don't you love Jesus?" When he tried to write his pen seemed 
to shape the words, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't 
rest, and on the street he went to mingle with the business men, 
but he seemed to hear a voice continually asking him, "Why 
don't you love Jesus?" He thought when night came and he got 
home with his family, he would forget it; but he couldn't. He 
complained that he wasn't well, and went to bed. But when he 
laid his head on the pillow that voice kept whispering, "Why 
don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't sleep. By and by, about 
midnight, he got up and said, "I will get a Bible and find where 
Christ contradicts himself, and then I'll have a reason, " and he 
turned to the book of John. My friends, if you want a reason 
for not loving Christ, don't turn to John. He knew Him too long. 
I don't believe a man can read the gospel of John without being 
turned to Christ. Well, he read through, and found no reason 
why he shouldn't love Him, but he found many reasons why he 
should. He read this book, and before morning he was on his 
knees, and that question put by that little child led to his con- 
version. 

The Dying Child. 

A lady had a little child that was dying. She thought it was 
resting sweetly in the arms of Jesus. She went into the room 
and the child asked her: "What are those clouds and mountains 
that I see so dark?" "Why, Eddy," said his mother, "there are 
no clouds or mountains, you must be mistaken." "Why, yes, I 
see great mountains and dark clouds, and I want you to take me 
in your arms and carry me over the mountains." Ah," said the 
mother, "you must pray to Jesus, He will carry you safely," and, 
my friends, the sainted mother, the praying wife, may come to 
your bedside and wipe the damp sweat from your brow, but they 



58 MOOD Y'S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

cannot carry you over the Jordan when the hour comes. This 
mother said to her little boy, "I am afraid that it is unbelief that 
is coming upon you, my child, and you must pray that the Lord 
will be with you in your dying moments. " And the two prayed, 
but the boy turned to her and said: "Don't you hear the angels, 
mother, over the mountains, and calling for me, and I cannot 
go?" "My dear boy, pray to Jesus, and He will come; He only 
can take you. " And the boy closed his eyes and prayed, and 
when he opened them a heavenly smile overspread his face as he 
said, "Jesus has come to carry me over the mountains." 

Dear sinner, Jesus is ready and willing to carry you over 
the mountains of sin, and over your mountains of unbelief. Give 
yourself to Him. 



The Finest Looking Little Boy Mr. Moody ever Saw. 

A few years ago I was in a town down in our state, the guest 
of a family that had a little boy about thirteen years, who did not 
bear the family name, yet was treated like the rest. Every night 
when he retired, the lady of the house kissed him and treated 
him in every respect like all the other children. I said to the 
lady of the house, " I don't understand it. " I think he was the 
finest looking boy I have ever seen. I said to her, "I don't un- 
derstand it." She says, "I want to tell you about that boy. 
That boy is the son of a missionary. His father and mother were 
missionaries in India, but they found they had got to bring their 
children back to this country to educate them. So they gave 
up their mission field and came back to educate their children 
and to find some missionary work to do in this country. But 
they were not prospered here as they had been in India, and the 
father said, "I will go back to India;" and the mother said, "If 
God has called you to go I am sure it will be my duty to go and 
my privilege to go, and I will go with you. " The father said, 
"you have never been separated from the children, and it will be 
hard for you to be separated from them; perhaps you had better 
stay and take care of them."^ 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 59 

But after prayer they decided to leave their children to be 
educated, and they left for India. This lady heard of it and 
sent a letter to the parents, in which she stated if they left one 
child at her house she would treat it like one of her own children. 
She said the mother came and spent a few days at her house, and 
being satisfied that her boy would receive proper care, consented 
to leave him, and the night before she was to leave him, the mis- 
sionary said to the Western lady: "I want to leave my boy to- 
morrow morning without a tear;" said she, "I may never see him 
again. " But she didn't want him to think she was weeping for 
anything she was doing for the Master. The lady said to her- 
self, " She won't leave that boy without a tear. " But the next 
day when the carriage drove up to the door, the lady went up 
stairs and she heard the mother in prayer, crying, " O God, give 
me strength for this hour. Help me to go away from my boy 
without a tear. " When she came down there was a smile upon 
her face. She hugged him and she kissed him, but she smiled as 
she did it. She gave up all her five or six children without shed- 
ding a tear, went back to India and in about a year there came a 
voice, "Come up hither. " Do you think she would be a stranger 
in the Lord's world? Don't you think she will be known 
there as a mother that loved her child? 



" Emma, this is Papa's Friend. " 

A gentleman one day came to my office for the purpose of 
getting me interested in a young man who had just got out of the 
penitentiary. "He says," said the gentleman, "he don't want to 
go to the office, but I want your permission to bring him in and 
introduce him. " I said, "Bring him in." The gentleman brought 
him in and introduced him, and I took him by the hand and told 
him I was glad to see him. I invited him up to my house, and 
when I took him into my family I introduced him as a friend. 
When my little daughter came into the room, I said, "Emma, 
this is papa's friend. " And she went up and kissed him, and the 
man sobbed aloud. After the child left the room, I said, "What 



60 MOODY S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

is the matter?" "O sir," he said, "I have not had a kiss for years. 
The last kiss I had was from my mother, and she was dying. I 
thought I would never have another one again." His heart was 
broken. 



Moody's Little Emma. 

I remember one time my little girl was teasing her mother 
to get her a muff, and so one day her mother brought a muff 
home, and, although it was storming, she very naturally wanted 
to go out in order to try her new muff. So she tried to get me 
to go out with her. I went out with her, and I said, "Emma, 
better let me take your hand." She wanted to keep her hands in 
her muff, and so she refused to take my hand. Well, by and by 
she came to an icy place, her little feet slipped, and down she 
went. When I helped her up she said, "Papa, you may give me 
your little finger." "No, my daughter, just take my hand." "No, 
no, papa, give me your little finger." Well, I gave my finger to 
her, and for a little way she got along nicely, but pretty soon we 
came to another icy place, and again she fell. This time she 
hurt herself a little, and she said, "Papa, give me your hand," 
and I gave her my hand, and closed my fingers about her wrist, 
and held her up so that she could not fall. Just so God is our 
keeper. He is wiser than we. 



Little Jimmy. 

A friend of mine in Chicago took his Sabbath-school out on 
the cars once. A little boy was allowed to sit on the platform 
of the car, when by some mischance he fell, and the whole train 
passed over him. They had to go on a half a mile before they 
could stop. They went back to him and found that the poor 
little fellow had been cut and mangled all to pieces. Two of the 
teachers went back with the remains to Chicago. Then came the 
terrible task of telling the parents about it. When they got to 
the house they dared not go in. They were waiting there for five 
minutes before any one had the courage to tell the story. But 



Child Stories. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 6 1 

at last they ventured in. They found the family at dinner. The 
father was called out — they thought they would tell the father 
first. He came out with the napkin in his hand. My friend said 
to him : " I have got very bad news to tell you. Your little 
Jimmy has got run over by the cars. " The poor man turned 
deathly pale and rushed into the room crying out, "Dead, dead." 
The mother sprang to her feet and came out of the sitting-room 
where the teachers were. When she heard the sad story she 
fainted dead away at their feet. "Moody," said my friend, "I 
wouldn't be the messenger of such tidings again if you would give 
me the whole of Chicago. I never suffered so much." I have 
got a son dearer to me than my life, and yet I would rather have 
a train a mile long run over him than that he should die without 
God and without hope. What is the loss of a child to the loss 
of a soul? 

Stubborn Little Sammy. 

At one time my sister had trouble with her little boy, and 
the father said, "Why, Sammy, you must go now and ask your 
mother's forgiveness. " The little fellow said he wouldn't. The 
father says, "You must. If you don't go and ask your mother's 
forgiveness I shall have to undress you and put you to bed. " He 
was a bright, nervous little fellow, never still a moment, and the 
father thought he would have such a dread of being undressed 
and put to bed. But the little fellow wouldn't, so they undressed 
him and put him to bed. The father went to his business, and 
when he came home at noon he said to his wife : " Has Sammy 
asked your forgiveness?" "No," she said, "he hasn't. " So the 
father went to him and said, "Why, Sammy, why don't you ask 
your mother's forgiveness?" The little fellow shook his head, 
"Won't do it. " "But, Sammy, you have got to." "Couldn't." 
The father went down to his office, and stayed all the afternoon, 
and when he came home he asked his wife, " Has Sammy asked 
your forgiveness?" "No, I took something up to him and tried 
to have him eat, but he wouldn't. " So the father went up to see 
him, and said, "Now, Sammy, just ask your mother's forgiveness, 



62 MOODY S ANECDOTES Child Stories. 

and you may be dressed and come down to supper with us. " 
"Couldn't do it. " The father coaxed, but the little fellow "couldn't 
do it. " That was all they could get out of him. You know very 
well he could, but he didn't want to. Now, the hardest thing a 
man has to do is to become a Christian, and it is the easiest. That 
may seem a contradiction, but it isn't. The hard point is be- 
cause he don't want to. 

The hardest thing for a man to do is to give up his will. 
That night they retired, and they thought surely early in the 
morning, he will be ready to ask his mother's forgiveness. The 
father went to him — that was Friday morning — to see if he was 
ready to ask his mother's forgiveness, but he "couldn't." The 
father and mother felt so bad about it they couldn't eat; they 
thought it was to darken their whole life. Perhaps that boy 
thought that father and mother didn't love him. Just what many 
sinners think because God won't let them have their own way. 
The father went to his business, and when he came home he said 
to his wife, "Has Sammy asked your forgiveness?" "No." So 
he went to the little fellow and said, "Now, Sammy, aie you not 
going to ask your mother's forgiveness?" "Can't," and that was 
all they could get out of him. The father couldn't eat any dinner; 
it was like death in the house. It seemed as if the boy was going 
to conquer his father and mother. Instead of his little will being 
broken, it looked very much as if he was going to break theirs. 
Late Friday afternoon, "Mother, mother, forgive, " says Sammy 
■ — "me." And the little fellow said "me," and he sprang to his 
feet and said : " I have said it, I have said it. Now dress me, 
and take me down to see father. He will be so glad to know I 
have said it. " And she took him down, and when the little fel- 
low came in he said, "I've said it, I've said it." 

Oh, my friends, it is so easy to say, "I will arise and go to 
my God." It is the most reasonable thing you can do. Isn't it 
an unreasonable thing to hold out? Come right to God just this 
very hour. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved." 



Child Stories. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 6$ 

Spurgeon and the Little Orphan. 

While we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day took Mr. 
Sankey and myself to his orphan asylum, and he was telling 
about them — that some of them had aunts and some cousins, and 
that every boy had some friend that took an interest in him, and 
came to see him and gave him a little pocket money, and one 
day he said while he stood there, a little boy came up to him and 
said, "Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you," and the boy sat down 
between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder, who was with the clergy- 
man, and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother 
were dead, and you didn't have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles, 
or friends to come and give you pocket money, and give you 
piesents, don't you think you would feel bad — because that's 
me?" Said Mr. Spurgeon, "the minute he asked that, I put my 
right hand down into my pocket and took out the money." Be- 
cause that's me ! And so with the Gospel; we must say to those 
who have sinned, the Gospel is offered to them. 



A Child Looking for its Lost Mother. 

A little child, whose mother was dying, was taken away to 
live with some friends because it was thought she did not under- 
stand what death is. All the while the child wanted to go home 
and see her mother. At last, when the funeral was over, and she 
was taken home, she ran all over the house, searching the sitting- 
room, the parlor, the library, and the bedrooms. She went from 
one end of the house to the other, and when she could not find 
her mother, she wished to be taken back to where they brought 
her from. Home had lost its attractions for the child when her 
mother was not there. My friends, the great attraction in heaven 
will not be its pearly gates, its golden streets, nor its choir of 
angels, but it will be Christ. Heaven would be no heaven if 
Christ were not there. But we know that He is at the right hand 
of the Father, and these eyes shall gaze on Him by-and-by; and 
we shall be satisfied when we awake with his likeness. 



64 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES 



CHRIST SAVES. 



Moody in Prison. 

I have good news to tell you — Christ is come after you. I 
was at the Fulton-street prayer-meeting, a good many years ago, 
one Saturday night, and when the meeting was over, a man came 
to me and said, "I would like to have you go down to the city 
prison to-morrow, and preach to the prisoners. I said I would 
be very glad to go. There was no chapel in connection with that 
prison, and I was to preach to them in their cells. I had to stand 
at a little iron railing and talk down a great, long narrow passage- 
way, to some three or four hundred of them, I suppose, all out of 
sight. It was pretty difficult work ; I never preached to the bare 
walls before. When it was over I thought I would like to see to 
whom I had been preaching, and how they had received the gos- 
pel. I went to the first door, where the inmates could have 
heard me best, and looked in at a little window, and there were 
some men playing cards. I suppose they had been playing all 
the while. "How is it with you here?" I said. "Well, stranger, 
we don't want you to get a bad idea of us. False witnesses swore a 
lie, and that is how we are here. " " Oh, " I said, " Christ cannot 
save anybody here ; there is nobody lost. " I went to the next 
cell. "Well, friend, how is it with you?" "Oh," said the prison- 
er, "the man that did the deed looked very much like me, so 
they caught me and I am here. " He was innocent, too ! I 
passed along to the next cell. "How is it with you?" "Well, 
we got into bad company, and the man that did it got clear, and 
we got taken up, but we never did anything. " I went along 
to the next cell. "How is it with you?" "Our trial comes on 
next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get free." 
I went round to nearly every cell, but the answer was always the 



Christ Saves. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 65 

same — they had never done anything. Why, I never saw so many 
innocent men together in my life. There was nobody to blame 
but the magistrates, according to their way of it. These men 
were wrapping their filthy rags of self-righteousness about them. 
And that has been the story for six thousand years. I. got dis- 
couraged as I went through the prison, on, and on, and on, cell 
after cell, and every man had an excuse. If he hadn't one, the 
devil helped him to make one. I had got almost through the 
prison, when I came to a cell and found a man with his elbows 
on his knees, and his head in his hands. Two little streams of 
tears were running down his cheeks; they did not come by drops 
that time. 

"What's the trouble?" Tsaid. He looked up, the picture of 
remorse and despair. "Oh, my sins are more than I can bear." 
"Thank God for that," I replied. "What," said he, "you are the 
man that has been preaching to us, ain't you?" "Yes." "I 
think you said you were a friend V "I am." "And yet you are 
glad that my sins are more than I can bear !" " I will explain," I said ; 
"if your sins are more than you can bear, won't you cast them on 
One who will bear them for you?" "Who's that?" "The Lord 
Jesus." "He won't bear my sins." "Why not?" "I have sinned 
against Him all my life." "I don't care if you have; the blood of 
Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin." Then I told him 
how Christ had come to seek and save that which was lost; to 
open the prison doors and set the captives free. It was like a 
cup of refreshment to find a man who believed he was lost, so I 
stood there, and held up a crucified Saviour to him. "Christ was 
delivered for our offenses, died for our sins, rose again for our 
justification." For a long time the man could not believe that 
such a miserable wretch could be saved. He went on to enu- 
merate his sins, and I told him that the blood of Christ could 
cover them all. After I had talked with him I said, "Now let us 
pray." He got down on his knees inside the cell, and I got down 
outside, and I said, "You pray." "Why," he said, "it would be 
blasphemy for me to call on God." " You call on God, " I said. 
He knelt down, and, like the poor publican, he lifted up his voice 
5 



66 MOODY S ANECDOTES Christ Saves. 

and said, " God be merciful to me, a vile wretch !" I put my 
hand through the window, and as I shook hands with him a tear 
fell on my hand that burned down into my soul. It was a tear 
of repentance. He believed he was lost. Then I tried to get 
him to believe that Christ had come to save him. I left him still 
in darkness. " I will be at the hotel," I said, " between nine and 
ten o'clock, and I will pray for you." Next morning, I felt so 
much interested, that I thought I must see him before I went 
back to Chicago. No sooner had my eye lighted on his face, 
than I saw that remorse and despair had fled away, and his coun- 
tenance was beaming with celestial light; the tears of joy had 
come into his eyes, and the tears of despair were gone. The 
sun of Righteousness had broken out across his path; his soul 
was leaping within him for joy; he had received Christ as 
Zaccheus did — joyfully. "Tell me about it," I said. "Well, I do 
not know what time it was; I think it was about midnight. I 
had been in distress a long time, when all at once my great bur- 
den fell off, and now, I believe I am the happiest man in New 
York." I think he was the happiest man I saw from the time I 
left Chicago till I got back again. His face was lighted up with 
the light that comes from the celestial hills. I bade him good- 
by, and I expect to meet him in another world. 

Can you tell me why the Son of God came down to that 
prison that night, and, passing cell after cell, went to that one, 
and set the captive free? It was because the man believed he 
was lost. 

A Father's Love for his Boy. 

A number of years ago, before any railway came into Chi- 
cago, they used to bring in the grain from the Western prairies in 
wagons for hundreds of miles, so as to have it shipped off by the 
the lakes. There was a father who had a large farm out there, 
and who used to preach the gospel as well as to attend to his 
farm. One day, when church business engaged him, he sent his 
son to Chicago with grain. He waited and waited for his boy to 
return, but he did not come home. At last he could wait no Ion- 



Christ Saves. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 6 7 

ger, so he saddled his horse and rode to the place where his son 
had sold the grain. He found that he had been there and got 
the money for his grain; then he began to fear that his boy had 
been murdered and robbed. At last, with the aid of a detective, 
they tracked him to a gambling den, where they found that he 
had gambled away the whole of his money. In hopes of winning 
it back again, he then had sold his team, and lost that money too. 
He had fallen among thieves, and like the man who was going 
to Jericho, they stripped him, and then they cared no more about 
him. What could he do? He was ashamed to go home to meet 
his father, and he fled. The father knew what it all meant. He 
knew the boy thought he would be very angry with him. He 
was grieved to think that his boy should have such feelings 
toward him. That is just exactly like the sinner. He thinks be- 
cause he has sinned, God will have nothing to do with him. But 
what did that father do? Did he say, "Let the boy go"? No; 
he went after him. He arranged his business, and started after 
the boy. That man went from town to town, from city to city. 
He would get the ministers to let him preach, and at the close he 
would tell his story. "I have got a boy who is a wanderer on 
the face of the earth somewhere. " He would describe his boy, 
and say, "If you ever hear of him or see him, will you not write 
to me?" At last he found that he had gone to California, thou- 
sands of miles away. Did that father say, "Let him go"? No; off 
he went to the Pacific coast, seeking the boy. He went to San 
Francisco, and advertised in the newspapers that he would preach 
at such a church on such a day. When he had preached he told 
his story, in hopes that the boy might have seen the advertise- 
ment and come to the church. When he had done, away under 
the gallery, there was a young man who waited until the audience 
had gone out; then he came toward the pulpit. The father 
looked and saw it was that boy, and he ran to him, and pressed 
him to his bosom. The boy wanted to confess what he had done, 
but not a word would the father hear. He forgave him freely, 
and took him to his home once more. 

I tell you Christ will welcome you this minute if you will 



68 MOODY S ANECDOTES Christ Saves. 

come. Say, "I will arise and go to my Father." May God in- 
cline you to take this step. There is not one whom Jesus has 
not sought far longer than that father. There has not been a 
day since you left Him but He has followed you. 



Lady Ann Erskine and Rowland Hill. 

There is a very good story told of Rowland Hill and Lady 
Ann Erskine. You have seen it, perhaps, in print, but I would 
like to tell it to you. While he was preaching in a park in Lon- 
don to a large assemblage, she was passing in her carriage. She 
said to her footman when she saw Rowland Hill in the midst of 
the people, "Why, who is that man?" " That is Rowland Hill, 
my lady." She had heard a good deal about the man, and she 
thought she would like to see him, so she directed her coachman 
to drive her near the platform. When the carriage came near he 
saw the insignia of nobility, and he asked who that noble lady 
was. Upon being told, he said, " Stop, my friends, I have got 
something to sell." The idea of a preacher becoming suddenly 
an auctioneer made the people wonder, and in the midst of a 
dead silence he said: "I have more than a title to sell — I have 
more than a crown of Europe to sell; it is the soul of Lady Ann 
Erskine. Is there any one here who bids for it? Yes, I hear a 
bid. Satan, Satan, what will you give? ' I will give pleasure, 
honor, riches — yea, I will give the whole world for her soul.' Do 
you hear another bid? Is there any other one? Do I hear 
another bid? Ah, I thought so; I hear another bid. The Lord 
Jesus Christ, what will You give for this soul? ' I will give peace, 
joy, comfort, that the world knows not of — yea, I will give eter- 
nal life.' Lady Ann Erskine, you have heard the two bidders for 
your soul, which will you accept?" And she ordered the door of 
her carriage to be opened, and came weeping from it, and accept- 
ed the Lord Jesus Christ. He, the great and mighty Saviour, is 
a bidder for your soul to-night. He offers you riches and com- 
fort, and joy, peace here, and eternal life hereafter, while Satan 
offers you what he cannot give. Poor lost soul, which will you 



Christ Saves. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 69 

have? He will ransom your soul if you but put your burden up- 
on Him. Twenty-one years ago I made up my mind that Jesus 
would have my soul, and I have never regretted the step, and no 
man has ever felt sorry for coming to Him. When we accept 
Him we must like Him. Your sins may rise up as a mountain, 
but the Son of Man can purge you of all evil, and take you right 
into the palaces of Heaven, if you will only allow Him to save 
you. 

The Czar and the Soldier. 

I remember hearing a few years ago a story about a young 
man away off in Russia. He was a wild, reckless dissipated 
youth. His father, thinking that if he could get him away from 
his associates, a reform would be worked, procured a commission 
in the army for him. And this is a mistake a great many Chris- 
tian people fall into in dealing with their sons. It is not a change 
of place they require, it is a change of heart, A change of place 
will not take them away from the tempter. Well, off to the army 
this young man went, and, instead of reforming, he gambled and 
borrowed, and took to drinking as vigorously as ever. At length 
he had borrowed all the money he could, and, as we say he "had 
come to the end of his rope." A certain sum of money had to be 
paid the next day, and he did not see how it could be done with- 
out selling his commission, and if he did that he would be com- 
pelled to leave the army and go home to his father disgraced. 
The laws were very rigid in Russia upon the matter of debt, and 
if he couldn't pay he knew he would have to go to prison. 

That night as he sat in his barracks, heart-broken at the 
prospect before him, he thought he would take up a paper and 
figure up his debts, and see how he stood. And here, let me say, 
it would be well if the sinner would pause occasionally, and try 
and figure up his sins, and see where he stood with God. Well, 
this young man put down one debt after another, until they made 
a long column. The total completely disheartened him ■ and he 
just put at the bottom of his figures, "Who is to pay this"? He 
laid his head upon his desk wearied, and fell asleep. That night 



7o MOODY'S ANECDOTES Christ Saves. 

the Czar, according to his custom, was walking through the bar- 
racks while the soldiers slept, and happened to come to that spot 
where the young soldier slept. He saw upon the desk the col- 
umn of debts, and when he came to the bottom saw the question : 
"Who's to pay them?" and wrote underneath the name " Nicholas." 
When the young man awoke he took up the paper and found 
written at the bottom the signature of the Czar of all the Russias. 
What did it mean? Had an angel dropped down and canceled 
the debt? It was too good to be tine. He couldn't believe it. 
But by and by the money came from the Emperor himself. This 
story may be true or not. I don't care whether it is or not; but 
there is one thing I do know is true, and that is that the great 
Emperor of heaven is here, and if you put down all your sins and 
multiply them by ten thousand, He will pay it and shelter you 
underneath the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth us from 
all sin. 

The Artist and the Beggar. 

I have read of an artist who wanted to paint a picture of 
the Prodigal Son. He searched through the madhouse, and the 
poor houses, and the prisons, to find a man wretched enough to 
represent the prodigal, but he could not find one. One day he 
was walking down the streets and met a man whom he thought 
would do. He told the poor beggar he would pay him well if he 
came to his room and sat for the portrait. The beggar agreed, 
and the day was appointed for him to come. The day came, and 
a man put in his appearance at the artist's room. "You made an 
appointment with me," he said, when he was shown into the 
studio. The artist looked at him, "I never saw you before," he 
said; "you cannot have an appointment with me." "Yes," he 
said, "I agreed to meet you to-day at ten o'clock." "You must 
be mistaken ; it must have been some other artist ; I was to see a 
beggar here at this hour." "Well," says the beggar, "I am he." 
"You?" "Yes." "Why, what have you been doing?" "Well, 
I thought I would dress myself up a bit before I got painted. " 
"Then," said the artist, "I do not want you; I wanted you as you 



Christ Saves. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 7 1 

were; now, you are no use to me." That is the way Christ wants 
every poor sinner, just as he is. It is only the ragged sinners 
that open God's wardrobe. I remember a boy to whom I gave 
a pair of boots, and I found him shortly after in his bare feet 
again. I asked him what he had done with them, and he replied 
that when he was dressed up it spoiled his business; when he was 
dressed up no one would give anything. By keeping his feet 
naked he got as many as five pairs of boots a day. So if you 
want to come to God don't dress yourself up. It is the naked 
sinner God wants to save. 



A Commercial Traveler. 

I remember when preaching in New York City, at the Hip- 
podrome, a man coming up to me and telling me a story that 
thrilled my soul. One night, he said he had been gambling; had 
gambled all the money away he had. When he went home to 
the hotel that night he did not sleep much. The next morning 
happened to be Sunday. He got up, felt bad, couldn't eat any- 
thing, didn't touch his breakfast, was miserable, and thought about 
putting an end to his existence. That afternoon he took a walk 
up Broadway, and when he came to the Hippodrome he saw 
great crowds going in and thought of entering too. But a police- 
man at the door told him he couldn't come in as it was a woman's 
meeting. He turned from it and strolled on; came back to his 
hotel and had dinner. At night he walked up the street until he 
reached the Hippodrome again, and this time he saw a lot of 
men going in. When inside he listened to the singing and heard 
the text, "Where art thou?" and he thought he would go out. 
He rose to go, and the text came upon his ears again, "Where 
art thou?" This was too personal, he thought, it was disagreea- 
ble, and he made for the door, but as he got to the third row 
from the entrance, the words came to him again. "Where art 
thou?" He stood still, for the question had come to him with 
irresistible force, and God had found him right there. He went 
to his hotel and prayed all that night, and now he is a bright and 
shining light. And this young man, who was a commercial trav- 



72 MOODTS ANECDOTES Christ Saves. 

eler, went back to the village in which he had been reared, and 
in which he had been one of the fastest young men — went back 
there, and went around among his friends and acquaintances and 
testified for Christ, as earnestly and beneficially for him as his 
conduct had been against Him. 



Governor Pollock and the Condemned Criminal. 

When I was East a few years ago, Mr. Geo. H. Stewart told 
me of a scene that occurred in a Pennsylvania prison, when Gov- 
ernor Pollock, a Christian man, was Governor of the State. A 
man was tried for murder, and the judge had pronounced sen- 
tence upon him. His friends had tried every means in their 
power to procure his pardon. They had sent deputation after 
deputation to the Governor, but he had told them all that the law 
must take its course. When they began to give up hope, the 
Governor went down to the prison and asked the sheriff to take 
him to the cell of the condemned man. The Governor was con- 
ducted into the presence of the criminal, and he sat down by the 
side of his bed and began to talk to him kindly — spoke to him of 
Christ and heaven, and showed him that although he was con- 
demned to die on the morrow by earthly judges, he would receive 
eternal life from the Divine Judge if he would accept salvation. 
He explained the plan of salvation, and when he left him he com- 
mitted him to God. When he was gone the sheriff was called to 
the cell by the condemned man. "Who was that man?" asked 
the criminal, "who was in here and talked so kind to me?" 
"Why," said the sheriff, "that was Governor Pollock." "Was 
that Governor Pollock? O Sheriff, why didn't you tell me who 
it was? If I had known that was him, I wouldn't have let him 
go out till he had given me pardon. The Governor has been 
here — in my cell — and I didn't know it," and the man wrung his 
hands and wept bitterly. My friends, there is one greater than a 
Governor here to-night. He sent His Son to redeem you — to 
bring you out of the prison home of sin. I come to-night to tell 
you He is here. 



Christ Saves. AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 73 

A Man who would not Speak to his Wife. 

I remember while in Philadelphia, a man with his wife came 
to our meetings. When he went out he wouldn't speak to his 
wife. She thought it was very queer, but said nothing, and went 
to bed thinking that in the morning he would be all right. At 
breakfast, however, he would not speak a word. Well, she 
thought this strange, but she was sure he would have got all over 
whatever was wrong with him by dinner. The dinner hour ar- 
rived, and it passed away without his saying a word. At supper 
not a word escaped him, and he would not go with her to the 
meeting. Every day for a whole week the same thing went on. 
But at the end of the week he could not stand it any longer, and 
he said to his wife: "Why did you go and write to Mr. Moody 
and tell him all about me?" "I never wrote to Mr. Moody in 
my life," said the wife. "You did," he answered. "You're mis- 
taken; why do you think that?" "Well, then, I wronged you; 
but when I saw Mr. Moody picking me out among all those peo- 
ple, and telling all about me, I was sure you must have written to 
him. " It was the Son of Man seeking for him, my friends, and I 
hope there will be a man here to-night — that man in the gallery 
yonder, that one before me — who will feel that I am talking per- 
sonally to him. May you feel that you are lost, and that the 
Lord is seeking for you, and when you feel this there is some 
chance of your being saved. 



GOLD. 

■ — There was never a sermon which you have listened to but in 
it Christ was seeking for you. I contend that a man cannot but 
find in every page of this book that Jesus Christ is seeking him 
through His blessed Word. This is what the Bible is for — to seek 
out the lost. 

— No man in the world should be so happy as a man of God. 
It is one continual source of gladness. He can look up and say, 
"God is my Father, Christ is my Saviour, and the Church is my 
mother. " 



74 MOOD TS ANECDOTES Christ Saves. 

— There is no other way to the Kingdom of God but by the 
way of the cross, and it will be easier for you to take it now than 
it will be afterward. 

— Everything has to be tried by the sinner before he will come 
to Christ. He has to feel that there is nothing that can save him 
but Christ, then he will come. 

— Have not some of you heard a sermon in which you were 
offered as a sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ, and your conscience 
was ^troubled? You went away, but you came back again, and 
the Spirit of God came upon you again and again, and you were 
troubled. Haven't you passed through that experience? Don't 
you remember something like that happening to you? That was 
the Son of God seeking for your soul. 

— The Son of God has come into the world to bless us. Look 
at that Sermon on the Mount. It is filled with the word blessed, 
blessed, blessed. I think it occurs nine times. His heart was 
full of blessings for the people. He had to get it out before He 
gave His sermon. 

— A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ 
as a personal friend. His is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, 
but it is He himself we have. The moment we have received 
Christ we should receive Him as a friend. When I go away from 
home I bid my wife and children good-by, I bid my friends and 
acquaintances good-by, but I never heard of a poor backslider 
going down on his knees and saying: "I have been near You 
for ten years; Your service has become tedious and monotonous; 
I have come to bid You farewell; good-by, Lord Jesus Christ." 
I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how they go 
away; they just run away. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 75 



CHRISTIAN WORK. 



How Moody was Encouraged. 

I remember a few years ago I got discouraged, and could 
not see much fruit of my work ; and one morning, as I was in my 
study, cast down, one of my Sabbath-school teachers came in and 
wanted to know what I was discouraged about, and I told him 
because I could see no result from my work; and speaking about 
Noah, he said: "By the way, did you ever study up the charac- 
ter of Noah?" I felt that I knew all about that, and told him 
that I was familiar with it, and he said, "Now, if you never 
studied that carefully, you ought to do it, for I cannot tell you 
what a blessing it has been to me. " When he went out I took 
down my Bible and commenced to read about Noah, and the 
thought came stealing over me, " Here is a man that toiled and 
worked a hundred years and didn't get discouraged; if he did, the 
Holy Ghost didn't put it on record, " and the clouds lifted, and I 
got up and said, if the Lord wants me to work without any fruit 
I will work on. I went down to the noon prayer-meeting, and 
when I saw the people coming to pray I said to myself, "Noah 
worked a hundred years and he never saw a prayer-meeting out- 
side of his own family. " Pretty soon a man got up right across 
the aisle where I was sitting, and said he had come from a little 
town where there had been a hundred uniting with the Church of 
God the year before. And I thought to myself, "What if Noah 
had heard that ! He preached so many, many years, and didn't 
get a convert, yet he was not discouraged. " Then a man got 
up right behind me, and he trembled as he said, "I am lost. I 
want you to pray for my soul. " And I said, "What if Noah had 
heard that! He worked a hundred and twenty years, and never 



76 MOODTS ANECDOTES Christian Work. 

had a man come to him and say that ; and yet he didn't get dis- 
couraged. " And I made up my mind then, that, God helping 
me, I would never get discouraged. I would do the best I could, 
and leave the result with God, and it has been a wonderful help 
to me. 



"We Will Never Surrender." 

There's a story told in history in the ninth century, I believe, 
of a young man that came up with a little handful of men to 
attack a king who had a great army of three thousand men. The 
young man had only five hundred, and the king sent a messenger 
to the young man, saying that he need not fear to surrender, for 
he would treat him mercifully. The young man called up one of 
his soldiers and said: "Take this dagger and drive it to your 
heart j " and the soldier took the dagger and drove it to his heart. 
And calling up another, he said to him, "Leap into yonder 
chasm, " and the man leaped into the chasm. The young man 
then said to the messenger, "Go back and tell your King I 
have got five hundred men like these. We will die, but we will 
never surrender. And tell your King another thing; that I will 
have him chained with my dog inside of half an hour. " And 
when the King heard that he did not dare to meet them, and his 
army fled before them like chaff before the wind, and within twen- 
ty-four hours he had that King chained with his dog. That is the 
kind of zeal we want. "We will die, but we will never surrender. " 
We will work until Jesus comes, and then we will rise with 
Him. 



The Faithful Aged Woman. 

An old woman who was seventy-five years old had a Sab- 
bath-school two miles away among the mountains. One Sunday 
there came a terrible storm of rain, and she thought at first she 
would not go that day, but then she thought, "What if some one 
should go and not find me there?" Then she put on her water- 
proof, and took her umbrella and overshoes, and away she went 



Christian Work. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 77 

through the storm, two miles away, to the Sabbath-school in the 
mountains. When she got there she found one solitary young 
man, and taught him the best she knew how all the afternoon. 
She never saw him again, and I don't know but the old woman 
thought her Sabbath-school had been a failure. That week the 
young man enlisted in the army, and in a year or two after the 
old woman got a letter from the soldier thanking her for going 
through the storm that Sunday. This young man thought that 
stormy day he would just go and see if the old woman was in 
earnest, and if she cared enough about souls to go through the 
rain. He found she came and taught him as carefully as if she 
was teaching the whole school, and God made that the occasion 
of winning the young man to Christ. When he lay dying in a 
hospital he sent the message to the old woman that he would 
meet her in heaven. Was it not a glorious thing that she did not 
get discouraged because she had but one Sunday-school scholar? 
Be willing to work with one. 



A Dream. 

I heard of a Christian who did not succeed in his work so 
well as he used to, and he got homesick and wished himself dead. 
One night he dreamed that he had died, and was carried by the 
angels to the Eternal City. As he went along the crystal pave- 
ment of heaven, he met a man he used to know, and they went 
walking down the golden streets together. All at once he noticed 
every one looking in the same direction, and saw One coming up 
who was fairer than the sons of men. It was his blessed Re- 
deemer. As the chariot came opposite, He came forth, and 
beckoning the one friend, placed him in His own chariot-seat, 
but himself He led aside, and pointing over the battlements of 
heaven, "Look over yonder," He said, "What do you see?" "It 
seems as if I see the dark earth I have come from." "What 
else?" "I see men as if they were blindfolded, going over a ter- 
rible precipice into a bottomless pit." "Well," said He, "will 
you remain up here, and enjoy these mansions that I have pre- 



78 MOODY S ANECDOTES Christian Work. 

pared, or go back to yon dark earth, and warn these men, and 
tell them about Me and my kingdom, and the rest that remaineth 
for the people of God?" That man never wished himself dead 
again. He yearned to live as long as ever he could, to tell men 
of heaven and of Christ. 



The Faithful Missionary. 

When I was going to Europe in 1867, my friend Mr. Stuart, 
of Philadelphia, said, "Be sure to be at the General Assembly in 
Edinburgh, in June. I was there last year," said he, "and it did 
me a world of good." He said that a returned missionary from 
India was invited to speak to the General Assembly, on the 
wants of India. This old missionary, after a brief address, told 
the pastors who were present, to go home and stir up their 
churches and send young men to India to preach the gospel. 
He spoke with such earnestness, that after a while he fainted, and 
they carried him from the hall. When he recovered he asked 
where he was, and they told him the circumstances under which 
he had been brought there. "Yes," he said, "I was making a 
plea for India, and I didn't quite finish my speech, did I?" After 
being told that he did not, he said, "Take me back and let me 
finish it." But they said, "No, you will die in the attempt." 
"Well," said he, "I will die if I don't," and the old man asked 
again that they would allow him to finish his plea. When he was 
taken back the whole congregation stood as one man, and as they 
brought him on the platform, with a trembling voice he said : 
" Fathers and mothers of Scotland, is it true that you will not let 
your sons go to India? I spent twenty-five years of my life there. 
I lost my health and I have come back with sickness and shat- 
tered health. If it is true that we have no strong grandsons to 
go to India, I will pack up what I have and be off to-morrow, 
and I will let those heathens know that if I cannot live for them 
I will die for them." The world will say that old man was enthu- 
siastic. Well, that is just what we want. 



Christian Work. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 79 

Forty-One Little Sermons. 

A man was preaching about Christians recognizing each 
other in heaven, and some one said, "I wish he would preach 
about recognizing each other on earth. " In one place where I 
preached, I looked over the great hall of the old circus building 
where it was held, and saw men talking to other men here and 
there. I said to the Secretary of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation who got up the meeting, "Who are these men?" He 
said, "They are a band of workers." They were all scattered 
through the hall, and preaching and watching for souls. Out of 
the fifty of them, forty-one of their number had got a soul each 
and were talking and preaching with them. We have been 
asleep long enough. When the laity wake up and try and help 
the minister the minister will preach better. 



GOLD. 

— It is the greatest pleasure of living to win souls to Christ. 

— I believe in what John Wesley used to say, "All at it, and 
always at it," and that is what the Church wants to-day. 

— If we were all of us doing the work that God has got for us 
to do, don't you see how the work of the Lord would advance? 

— There is no man living that can do the work that God has 
got for me to do. No one can do it but myself. And if the 
work ain't done we will have to answer for it when we stand 
before God's bar. 

— What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all the time 
receiving, never giving out anything. Why is it that many Chris- 
tians are cold? Because they are all the time receiving, never 
giving out anything. 



So MOODY S ANECDOTES 



CHRISTIAN ZEAL. 



Satan's Match. 

If you will allow me an expression, Satan got a match when 
he got Paul. He tried to get him away from God, but he never 
switched off. Look how they tortured him. Look how they 
stripped and beat him. Not only did the Romans do this, but 
the Jews also. How the Jews tried to drag him from his high 
calling. How they stripped him and laid upon the back of the 
apostle blow after blow. And you know that the scourge in those 
days was no light thing. Sometimes men died under that pun- 
ishment. If one of us got one of the stripes that Paul got, how 
the papers would talk about it. But it was nothing to Paul. Lie 
just looked at it as if it were a trivial thing — as if it were a light 
affliction. When he was stripped and scourged by his persecutors 
you might have gone and asked him: "Well, Paul, what are you 
going to do now?" "Why, press toward the mark of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus. " Take your stand before Him 
and ask him as they bring the rod down upon his head, "What 
are you going to do now, Paul?" "Do? I am going to press 
toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " He 
had one idea, and that was it. Look at him as they stoned him. 
The Jews took up great stones to throw upon the great apostle. 
They left him for dead, and I suppose he was dead, but God 
raised him up. Come up and look at him all bruised and bleed- 
ing as he lies. "Well, Paul, you've had a narrow escape this time. 
Don't you think you had better give up? Gooff into Arabia and 
rest for six weeks. What will you do if you remain here? They 
mean to kill you." "Do!" he cries as he raises himself like a 
mighty giant, "I am going to press toward the mark of the high 



Christum Zeal AND ILL USTRA TIONS. 8 1 

calling of God. " And he goes forth and preaches the gospel. I 
am ashamed of Christianity in the nineteenth century when I 
think of those early Christians. Why, it would take all the Chris- 
tians in the Northwest to make one Paul. Look at his heroism 
everywhere he went. Talk about your Alexanders; why, the 
mighty power of God rested upon Paul. "Why, " said he, "thrice 
was I shipwrecked while going off to preach the gospel. " What 
did he care about that? Cold churches wouldn't trouble him, 
although they trouble us. What would lying elders and false 
deacons be to him? That wouldn't stop him. He had but one 
idea, and over all obstacles he triumphed for that one idea. Look 
at him as he comes back from his punishment. He goes up some 
side street and gets lodgings. He works during the day and 
preaches at night on the street. He had no building like this, no 
committee to wait on him, no carriage to carry him from the 
meeting, no one to be waiting to pay his board bills. There he 
was toiling and preaching, and, after preaching for eighteen 
months, they say, "We'll have to pay you for all this preaching, 
Paul, " and they take him to the corner of the street and pay him 
with thirty-nine stripes ! That is the way they paid him. Oh, 
my friends, when you look at the lives of such men don't it make 
you feel ashamed of yourselves. I confess I feel like hanging my 
head. Go to him in the Philippian jail and ask him what he is 
going to do now. "Do? press forward for the mark of my high 
calling. " And so he went on looking toward one point, and no 
man could stand before him. 



Saved and Saving. 



One day I saw a steel engraving that I liked very much. I 
thought it was the finest thing I ever had seen, at the time, and 
I bought it. It was a picture of a woman coming out of the 
water, and clinging with both arms to the cross. There she came 
out of the drowning waves with both arms around the cross per- 
fectly safe. Afterwards, I saw another picture that spoiled this 
one for me entirely, it was so much more lovely. It was a pic- 
6 



82 MOODY S ANECDOTES Christian Zeal. 

ture of a person coming out of the dark waters, with one arm 
clinging to the cross and with the other she was lifting some one 
else out of the waves. That is what I like. Keep a firm hold 
upon the cross, but always try to rescue another from the drown- 
ing. 

A Story Moody "Never will Forget." 

A few years ago, in a town somewhere in this state, a mer- 
chant died, and while he was lying a corpse I was told a story I 
will never forget. When the physician that attended him saw 
there was no chance for him here, he thought it would be time to 
talk about Christ to the dying man. And there are a great many 
Christians just like this physician. They wait till a man is just 
entering the other world, just till he is about nearing the throne, 
till the sands of life are about run out, till the death rattle is in 
his throat, before they commence to speak of Christ. The phy- 
sician stepped up to the dying merchant and began to speak of 
Jesus, the beauties of Christianity, and the salvation he had of- 
fered to all the world. The merchant listened quietly to him, 
and then asked him, "How long have you known of these things?" 
"I have been a Christian since I came from the East," he replied. 
"You have been a Christian so long and have known all this, and 
have been in my store every day. You have been in my house; 
have associated with me; you knew all these things, and why 
didn't you tell me before?" The doctor went home and retired 
to rest, but could not sleep. The question of the dying man 
rang in his ears. He could not explain why he had not spoken 
before, but he saw he had neglected his duty to his principles. 
He went back to his dying friend, intending to urge upon him the 
acceptance of Christ's salvation, but when he began to speak to 
him the merchant only replied in a sad whisper, "Oh, why didn't 
you tell me before?" Oh, my friends, how many of us act like 
this physician? If we don't practice in every particular the pro- 
fessions we make, and try to influence the lives of others, and 
lead the lives of Christians according to Christian precept, the 
world will go on stumbling over us. 



Christian Zeal AND ILLUSTRATIONS. S 3 

The Missing Stone. 

I remember hearing of a man's dream, in which he imagined 
that when he died he was taken by the angels to a beautiful tem- 
ple. After admiring it for a time, he discovered that one stone 
was missing. All finished but just one little stone; that was left 
out. He said to the angel, "What is this stone left out for?" 
The angel replied, "That was left out for you, but you wanted to 
do great things, and so there was no room left for you. " He 
was startled and awoke, and resolved that he would become a 
worker for God, and that man always worked faithfully after that. 



Sad Lack of Zeal. 

Two young men came into our inquiry room here the other 
night, and after a convert had talked with them, and showed them 
the way,' the light broke in upon them. They were asked, 
"Where do you go to church?" They gave the name of the church 
where they had been going. Said one, "I advise you to go and 
see the minister of that church. " They said, "We don't want to 
go there any more ■ we have gone there for six years and no one 
has spoken to us." 

A Zealous Young Lady. 

I was very much interested some time ago in a young lady 
that lived in the city. I don't know her name, or I have forgot- 
ten it. She was about to go to China as the wife of a missionary 
on his way to some heathen field. She had a large Sabbath-school 
class in the city and succeeded in getting a blessing upon many 
of her scholars through her efforts. She was very anxious to get 
some one who would look after her little flock and take care of 
them while she was gone. She had a brother who was not a 
Christian, and her heart was set on his being converted and taking 
her place as leader of the class. The young man — perhaps he is 
in this audience to-day — refused to accept of Christ, but away in 
her closet alone she pleaded with God that her brother might be 
converted and take her place. She wanted to reproduce herself 



H MOODY S ANECDOTES Christian Zeal 

and that is what every Christian ought to do — get somebody else 
converted to take up your work. Well, the last morning came, 
and around the family altar as the moment drew near for the 
lady's departure, and they did not know when they should see her 
again, the father broke down, and the boy went up stairs.' Just 
before she left for the train the boy came down, and putting his 
arms around his sister's neck, said to her, "My dear sister, I will 
take your Saviour for mine, and I will take care of your class for 
you, " and the young man took her class, and the last I heard of 
him he was filling her place. There was a young lady established 
in good work. 

How Moody Treated the Committees. 

I remember when I was in Chicago before the fire, I was on 
some ten or twelve committees. My hands were full. If a man 
came to me to talk about his soul I would say I haven't time ; 
got a committee to attend to. But now I have turned my back 
on everything — turned my attention to saving souls, and God has 
blessed me and made me an instrument to save more souls during 
the last four or five years than during all my previous life. And 
so if a minister will devote himself to this undivided work, God 
will bless him. Take that motto of Paul's : " One thing I do, 
forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " 



Fourscore and Five. 
When we went to London there was an old woman eighty- 
five years old, who came to the meetings and said she wanted a 
hand in that work. She was appointed to a district, and called 
on all classes of people. She went to places where we would 
probably have been put out, and told the people of Christ. There 
were none that could resist her. When the old woman, eighty- 
five years old, came to them and offered to pray for them, they 
all received her kindly — Catholics, Jews, Gentiles — all. That is 
enthusiasm. That is what we want. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 85 



CONFESSING CHRIST. 



What a Woman Did. 

One place we were in, in England, I recollect a Quakeress came 
in. The meeting was held in a Methodist Church, and the Spirit 
of God was there — souls were being saved : multitudes were pres- 
sing into the kingdom. She had a brother who was a drinker and 
a nephew who had just come to the city, and he was in a critical 
state, too. They came to the meeting with her. Everything ap- 
peared strange to her, and when she went home she did not know 
really what to say. She and her brother and nephew went up 
stairs, and coming down she thought, it may be that the destiny 
of their souls depends on what I say now. When she entered 
the parlor she found them laughing and joking about the meeting. 
She put on a serious face and said, "I don't think we should 
laugh at it. Suppose Mr. Moody had come to you and asked 
you if you were converted, what would you have told him?" "I 
would have told him to mind his own business, " replied one of 
them. "I think it is a very important question, and a question a 
Christian ought to put to any one; Mr. Moody, as a Christian, 
has a right to ask any one." She talked with them, and when 
that brother went to bed, he began thinking and thinking. He 
had tickets for the theater next night, but when next night came 
he said he would go to the meeting with his sister, and, to make a 
long story short, he came and was converted. He came to me 
— he was a mechanic — and asked me to talk to the laborers and 
have them come to the meetings. He had got such a blessing 
himself that he wanted them to share it. 

That man brought me a list of the names of the mechanics 
about half as long as this room, and we got up a meeting in the 
theater, and we had that theater packed. That was the first meet- 



S6 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Confessing Christ. 

ing of working men I ever had, and the work of grace broke out 
among them. This was but the result of the woman taking her 
stand. She went into the inquiry-room and became an earnest 
worker. I get letters from her frequently now, and I do not be- 
lieve there is a happier woman in all England. If she had taken 
another course she might have been the means of ruining these 
young men. There is one thing that Christians ought to ask them- 
selves. Ask your heart, "Is this the work of the devil?" That 
is the plain question. If it's the work of the devil turn your back 
against it. I would if I thought it was. If it is the work of God, 
be careful what you do. My friends, it is a terrible thing to fight 
against God. If it is the Lord's wish, come out and take your 
stand, and let there be one united column of people coming up 
to heaven. Let every man, woman and child, be not afraid to 
confess the Lord Jesus Christ. 



A Business Man Confessing Christ. 

When I was in Ireland I heard of a man who got great bless- 
ings from God. He was a business man — a landed proprietor. 
He had a large family, and a great many men to work for him 
taking care of his home. He came up to Dublin and there he 
found Christ. And he came boldly out and thought he would go 
home and confess Him. He thought that if Christ had redeemed 
him with his precious blood, the least he could do would be to 
confess Him, and tell about it sometimes. So he called his fam- 
ily together and his servants, and with tears running down his 
cheeks he poured out his soul to them, and told them what Christ 
had done for him. He took the Bible down from its resting-place 
and read a few verses of gospel. Then he went down on his knees 
to pray, and so greatly was the little gathering blessed that four 
or five out of that family were convicted of sin ; they forsook the 
ways of the world, and accepted Christ and eternal life. It was 
like unto the household of Cornelius, which experienced the 
working of the Holy Spirit. And that man and his family were 
not afraid to follow out their profession. 



Confessing Christ AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 87 

Two Young Men. 

I heard a story about two young men who came to New 
York City from the country on a visit. They went to the same 
boarding-house to stay and took a room together. Well, when 
they came to go to bed each felt ashamed to go down on his 
knees before his companion first. So they sat watching each 
other. In fact, to express the situation in one word, they were 
both cowards — yes, cowards ! But at last one of them mustered 
up a little courage, and with burning blushes, as if he was about 
to do something wrong and wicked, he sunk down on his knees 
to say his prayers. As soon as the second saw that, he also knelt. 
And then, after they had said their prayers, each waited for the 
other to get up. When they did manage to get up one said to 
the other: "I really am glad to see that you knelt; I was afraid 
of you. " "Well," said the other, "and I was afraid of you. " So 
it turned out that both were Christians, and yet they were afraid 
of each other. You smile at that, but how many times have you 
done the same thing — perhaps not in that way, but the same thing 
in effect. Henceforth, then, be not ashamed, but let every one 
know you are His. 

The Little Tow-Headed Norwegian. 

I remember while in Boston I attended one of the daily 
prayer meetings. The meetings we had been holding had been 
almost always addressed by young men. Well, in that meeting 
a little tow-headed Norwegian boy stood up. He could hardly 
speak a word of English plain, but he got up and came to the 
front. He trembled all over and the tears were all trickling down 
his cheeks, but he spoke out as well as he could and said: "If 
I tell the world about Jesus, then will He tell the Father about 
me." He then took his seat; that was all he said, but I tell you 
that in those few words he said more than all of them, old and 
young together. Those few words went straight down into the 
heart of every one present. "If I tell the world" — yes, that's 
what it means to confess Christ. 



88 MOOD TS ANECDOTES Confessing Christ 

The Family that Hooted at Moody. 

I remember a family in Chicago that used to hoot at me and 
my scholars as we passed their house sometimes. One day one 
of the boys came into the Sunday-school and made light of it. As 
he went away, I told him I was glad to see him there and hoped 
he would come again. He came and still made a noise, but I 
urged him to come the next time, and finally one day he said : 
"I wish you would pray for me, boys. " That boy came to Christ. 
He went home and confessed his faith, and it wasn't long before 
that whole family had found the way into the Kingdom of God. 



Peter's Confession. 

One day He said, "Whom do men say that I am?" He 
wanted them to confess Him. But one said, "They say thou art 
Elias, " and another "that thou art Jeremiah;" and another — 
"Thou art St. John the Baptist." But He asked, "Whom do you 
say that I am?" — turning to His disciples. And Peter answers, 
"Thou art the Son of the living God." Then our Lord exclaim- 
ed, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas. " Yes, He blessed him 
right there because he confessed Him to be the Son of God. He 
was hungry to get some one to confess him. Let every one take 
his stand on the side of the Lord. 



The Blind Beggar. 

Here is a whole chapter in John (ix) of forty-one verses, just 
to tell how the Lord blessed that blind beggar. It was put in 
this book, I think, just to bring out the confession of that man. 
"The neighbors, therefore, and they which before had seen him 
which was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some 
said, This is he ; others said, He is like him ; but he said, I am he." 
If it had been our case I think we would have kept still; we 
would have said, "There is a storm brewing among the Pharisees, 
and they have said, If any man acknowledges Christ we will put 
him out of the Synagogue. Now I don't want to be put out of 
the Synagogue." I am afraid we would have said that; that is the 
way with a good many of the young converts. What did the 



Confessing Christ AND ILLUSTRATIONS. So 

young convert here? He said, "I am he." And bear in mind 
he only told what he knew; he knew the Man had given him his 
eyes. "Some said, He is like him; but he said, I am he." So, 
young converts, open your lips and tell what Christ has done for 
you. If you can't do more than that, open your lips and do that. 
"Therefore, said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? 
He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and 
anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, 
and wash; and I went and washed, and I received sight." He 
said, " He anointed my eyes with clay, and I went to the pool and 
washed, and whereas I had no eyes, I have now got two good 
eyes." Some skeptic might ask, "What is the philosophy of it?'» 
But he couldn't tell that. "Then said they unto him, Where is he? 
He said, I know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that 
aforetime was blind. And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus 
made the clay and opened his eyes. Then again the Pharisees 
also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto 
them, He put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and do see." He 
wasn't afraid to tell his experience twice; he had just told it once. 
"Therefore, said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, 
because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can 
a man that is a sinner do such miracles? and there was a division 
among them." Now I am afraid if it had been us, we would have 
kept still and said, "There is a storm brewing." "They say unto 
the blind man again, What sayest thou of Him, that He hath 
opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet." Now you see 
he has got to talking of the Master, and that is a grand good thing. 

The Young Convert. 

A young convert got up in one of our meetings and tried to 
preach; he could not preach very well either, but he did the best 
he could — but some one stood up and said, "Young man, you. 
cannot preach; you ought to be ashamed of yourself." Said the 
young man, "So I am, but I am not ashamed of my Lord." 
That is right. Do not be ashamed of Christ — of the man that 
bought us with His own blood. 



90 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Confessing Christ. 

GOLD. 

— If Christ comes into our hearts we are not ashamed. 

— I wish we had a few more women like the woman of Samaria, 
willing to confess what the Lord Jesus Christ had done for their 
souls. 

— Believing and confessing go together; and you cannot be 
be saved without you take them both. "With the mouth con- 
fession is made unto salvation. " If you ever see the kingdom of 
heaven you have to take this way. 

— Satan puts straws across our path and magnifies it and makes 
us believe it is a mountain, but all the devil's mountains are 
mountains of smoke; when you come up to them they are not 
there. 

— I do not know anything that would wake up Chicago better 
than for every man and woman here who loves Him to begin to 
talk about Him to their friends, and just to tell them what He has 
done for you. You have got a circle of friends. Go and tell 
them of Him. 

— I can't help thinking of the old woman who started out when 
the war commenced with a poker in her hand. When asked what 
she was going to do with it she said: "I can't do much with it, 
but I can show what side I'm on." My friends, even if you can't 
do much, show to which side you belong. 

— I may say with truth that there is only about one in ten who 
professes Christianity who will turn round and glorify God with a 
loud voice. Nine out of ten are still born Christians. You never 
hear of them. If you press them hard with the question whether 
they are Christians they might say, "Well, I hope so." We never 
see it in their actions; we never see it in their lives. They might 
belong to the church you go to, but you never see them at the 
prayer-meetings or taking any interest in the church affairs. They 
don't profess it among their fellows or in their business, and the 
result is that there are hundreds going on with a half hope, not 
sure whether their religion will stand them or not. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 91 



uUJN VERSION. 



Mr. Moody's First Impulse in Converting Souls. 

I want to tell you how I got the first impulse to work solely 
for the conversion of men. For a long time after my conversion 
I didn't accomplish anything. I hadn't got into my right place; 
that was it. I hadn't thought enough of this personal work. I'd 
get up in prayer meeting, and I'd pray with the others, but just to 
go up to a man and take hold of his coat and get him down on 
his knees, I hadn't yet got round to that. It was in i860 the 
change came. In the Sunday school I had a pale, delicate young 
man as one of the teachers. I knew his burning piety, and as- 
signed him to the worst class in the school. They were all girls. 
and it was an awful class. They kept gadding around in the 
school-room, and were laughing and carrying on all the while. 
And this young man had better success than any one else. One 
Sunday he was absent, and I tried myself to teach the class, but 
couldn't do anything with them; they seemed farther off than ever 
from any concern about their souls. Well, the day after his ab- 
sence, early Monday morning, the young man came into the store 
where I worked, and, tottering and bloodless, threw himself down 
on some boxes. "What's the matter?" I asked, "I have been 
bleeding at the lungs, and they have given me up to die," he 
said. "But you are not afraid to die?" I questioned, "No," said 
he, "I am not afraid to die, but I have got to stand before God 
and give an account of my stewardship, and not one of my Sab- 
bath-school scholars has been brought to Jesus. I have failed to 
bring one, and haven't any strength to do it now. " 

He was so weighed down that I got a carriage and took that 
dying man in it, and we called at the homes of every one of his 
scholars, and to each one he said, as best his faint voice would 



92 MOODYS ANECDOTES Conversion. 

let him, "I have come to just ask you to come to the Saviour," 
and then he prayed as I never heard before. And for ten days 
he labored in that way, sometimes walking to the nearest houses. 
And at the end of that ten days every one of that large class had 
yielded to the Saviour. Full well I remember the night before 
he went away (for the doctors said he must hurry to the South), 
how we held a true love-feast. It was the very gate of heaven, 
that meeting. He prayed, and they prayed; he didn't ask them, 
he didn't think they could pray; and then we sung, "Blest be 
the tie that binds. " It was a beautiful night in June that he left 
on the Michigan Southern, and I was down to the train to help 
him off. And those girls every one gathered there again, all un- 
known to each other; and the depot seemed a second gate to 
heaven, in the joyful, yet tearful, communion and farewells be- 
tween these newly redeemed souls and him whose crown of re- 
joicing it will be that he led them to Jesus. At last the gong 
sounded, and, supported on the platform, the dying man shook 
hands with each one, and whispered, "I will meet you yonder." 



Very Hard, yet Very Easy. 

The hardest thing, I will admit, ever a man had to do is to 
become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. This seems to 
many to be a paradox, but I will repeat it, it is the most difficult 
thing to become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. I have a 
little nephew in this city. When he was about three or four years 
of age, he threw that Bible on the floor. I think a good deal of 
that Bible, and I don't like to see this. His mother said to him, 
" Go pick up uncle's Bible from the floor. " " I won't, " he replied. 
"Go and pick up that Bible directly." "I won't." "What did 
you say?" asked his mother. She thought he didn't understand. 
But he understood well enough, and had made up his mind that 
he wouldn't. She told the boy she would have to punish him if 
he didn't, and then he said he couldn't, and by and by he said he 
didn't want to. And that is the way with the people in coming to 
Christ. At first they say they won't, then they can't, and then 
they don't want to. The mother insisted upon the boy picking 



Conversion. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 93 

up the Bible, and he got down and put his arms around it and 
pretended he couldn't lift it. He was a great, healthy boy, and 
he could have picked it up easily enough. I was very anxious 
to see the fight carried on because she was a young mother, and 
if she didn't break that boy's will he was going to break her heart 
by and by. So she told him again if he didn't pick it up she 
would punish him, and the child just picked it up. It was very 
easy to do it when he made up his mind. So it is perfectly easy 
for men to accept the gospel. The trouble is they don't want to 
give up their will. If you want to be saved you must just accept 
that gospel — that Christ is your Saviour, that he is your Redeemer, 
and that he has rescued you from the curse of the law. Just say 
"Lord Jesus Christ, I trust you from this hour to save me," and 
the moment you take that stand he will put his loving arms 
around you and wrap about you the robe of righteousness. 



The Arrows of Conviction. 

I remember while preaching in Glasgow, an incident occurred 
which I will relate. I had been preaching there several weeks, 
and the night was my last one, and I pleaded with them as I had 
never pleaded there before. I urged the people to meet me in 
that land. It is a very solemn thing to stand before a vast au- 
dience for the last time and think you may never have another 
chance of asking them to come to Christ. I told them I would 
not have another opportunity, and urged them to accept, and 
just asked them to meet me at that marriage supper. At the 
conclusion I soon saw a tall young lady coming into the inquiry 
room. She had scarcely come in when another tall young lady 
came in, and she went up to the first and put her arms around 
her and wept. Pretty soon another young lady came and went 
up to the first two and just put her arms around both of them. 
They were three sisters and I found that although they had 
been sitting in different parts of the building, the sure arrow of 
conviction went down to their souls, and brought them to the in- 
quiry room. Another young lady came down from the gallery 
and said: "Mr. Moody, I want to become a Christian." I asked 



94 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Conversion. 

a young Christian to talk to her, and when she went home that 
night about 10 o'clock — her mother was sitting up for her — she 
said: "Mother, I have accepted the invitation to be present at 
the marriage supper of the Lamb." Her mother and father laid 
awake that night talking about the salvation of their child. That 
was Friday night, and next day (Saturday) she was unwell, and 
before long her sickness developed into scarlet fever, and a few 
days after I got this letter : 

"Mr. Moody — Dear Sir: It is now my painful duty to inti- 
mate to you that the dear girl concerning whom I wrote to you 
on Monday, has been taken away from us by death. Her de- 
parture, however, has been signally softened to us, for she told us 
yesterday she was "going home to be with Jesus," and after giving 
messages to many, told us to let Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey 
know that she died a happy Christian." 



How a Citizen Became a Soldier. 

One day I was walking through the streets of York, in Eng- 
land. I saw a little way ahead a soldier coming toward me. He 
had the red uniform on of the infantry — the dress of the army. I 
knew at once when I saw him that he was a soldier. When he 
came near me I stopped him. I said, "My good man, if you have 
no objection I would like to ask you a few questions." "Cer- 
tainly, sir," said he. "Well, then, I would like to know how you 
first became a soldier." "Yes, sir, I will tell you. You see, sir, 
I wanted to become a soldier, and the recruiting officer was in 
our town, and I went up to him and told him I wanted to enlist. 
"Well, sir, he said, 'All right,' and the first thing he did, sir, he took 
an English shilling out of his pocket, sir, and put it into my hand. 
The very moment, sir, a recruiting-sergeant puts a shilling into 
your hand, sir, you are a soldier." I said to myself, "That is the 
very illustration I want. " 

That man was a free man at one time — he could go here and 
there; do just what he liked; but the moment the shilling was 
put into his hand he was subject to the rules of war, and 
Queen Victoria could send him anywhere and make him obey 



Conversion. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 95 

the rules and regulations of the army. He is a soldier the very 
minute he takes the shilling. He has not got to wait to put on 
the uniform. And when you ask me how a man may be convert- 
ed at once, I answer, just the same as that man became a soldier. 
The citizen becomes a soldier in a minute, and from being a free 
man becomes subject to the command of others. The moment 
you take Christ into your heart, that moment your name is written 
in the roll of Heaven. 



Moody a Young Convert. 

I remember soon after I got converted a pantheist got hold 
of me, and just tried to draw me back to the world. Those men 
who try to get hold of a young convert are the worst set of men. 
I don't know a worse man than he who tries to pull young Chris- 
tians down. He is nearer the borders of hell than any man I 
know. When this man knew I had found Jesus he just tried to 
pull me down. He tried to argue with me, and I did not know 
the Bible very well then, and he got the best of me. The only 
way to get the best of those atheists, pantheists, or infidels, is to 
have a good knowledge of the Bible. Well, this pantheist told me 
God was everywhere — in the air, in the sun, in the moon, in the 
earth, in the stars, but really he meant nowhere. And the next 
time I went to pray, it seemed as if I was not praying anywhere 
or to anyone. We have ample evidence in the Bible that there 
is such a place as heaven, and we have abundant manifestations 
that His influence from heaven is felt among us. 



"Free." 

You will remember when we had slavery we used to have 
men come up from Kentucky, Tennessee, and other slave states 
in order to escape from slavery. I hope if there are any South- 
ern people here they will not think in this allusion I am trying to 
wound their feelings. We all remember when these colored men 
came here how they used to be afraid lest some one should come 
and take them back. Why, I remember in the store we had a 
poor fugitive, and he used to be quaking all the time. Sometimes 



96 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Conversion. 

a customer would come in, and he would be uneasy all the time. 
He was afraid it was some one to take him back to slavery. But 
somebody tells him if he was in Canada he would be perfectly 
safe, and he says: "If I could only get into Canada; if I could 
only get under the Union Jack I would be free." There are no 
slaves under the Union Jack he has been told — that is the flag of 
freedom; the moment he gets under it he is a free man. So he 
starts. We'll say there are no railways, and the poor fellow has 
got ten miles ahead when his master comes up, and he hears that 
his slave has fled for Canada and sets off in pursuit. Some one 
tells the poor fugitive that his master is after him. What does 
the poor fugitive do? What does he do? He redoubles his ex- 
ertions and presses on, on, on, on. He is a slave born, and he 
knows a slave belongs to his master. Faster he goes ! He knows 
his master is after him and he will be taken if he comes up with 
him before he reaches the lines. He says, "If I can only hold 
out and get under the English flag, the English government will 
protect me." The whole English army will come to protect me 
if need be. On he presses. He is now nearing the boundary 
line. One minute he is a slave, and in an instant he is a free 
man. My friends, don't mistake. These men can be saved to- 
night if they cross the line. 



An Irishman Leaps Into the Life-Boat. 

While I was in New York, an Irishman stood up in a young 
converts' meeting and told how he had been saved. He said in 
his broken Irish brogue that I used an illustration, and that illus- 
tration saved him. And I declare that that is the only man I ever 
knew who was converted without being spoken to. He said I 
used an illustration of a wrecked vessel, and said that all would 
perish unless some assistance came. Presently a life -boat came 
alongside and the captain shouted, "Leap into the life-boat — 
leap for your lives, or you will perish, " and when I came to the 
point I said, "Leap into the life -boat; Christ is your life-boat of 
salvation, and he leaped and was saved. 



Conversion. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 97 

Safe in the Ark. 

When the voice came down from heaven to Noah, "Come 
thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous 
before me in this generation," now, there was a minute when 
Noah was outside the ark, and another when he was inside, and 
by being inside he was saved. As long as he was outside of the 
ark he was exposed to the wrath of God just like the rest of those 
antediluvians. If he stayed out, and remained with those ante- 
diluvians, he would have been swept away, as they were. It was 
not his righteousness; it was not his faith nor his works that 
saved him; it was the ark. And, my friends, we have not, like 
Noah, to be one hundred and twenty years making an ark for our 
safety. God has provided an ark for us, and the question is : Are 
you inside or outside this ark? If you are inside you are safe; 
if you are outside you are not safe. 



GOLD. 

— It is our privilege to know that we are saved. 

— We shall draw the world to Christ when we are filled with 
religion. 

— He that overcometh shall inherit all things. God has 
no poor children. 

— I hold to the doctrine of sudden conversion as I do to my 
life, and I would as quickly give up my life as give up this doc- 
trine, unless it can be proved that it is not according to the word 
of God. Now, I will admit that light is one thing and birth is 
another. A soul must be born before it can see light. A child 
must be born before it can be taught; it must be born before it 
can walk; it must be born before it can be educated. 
7 



98 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES 



DECISION. 



Moody's Mistake. 

The last time I preached upon this question was in old Far- 
well Hall. I had been for five nights preaching upon the life of 
Christ. I took him from the cradle and followed Him up to the 
judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider I made as great 
a blunder as ever I made in my life. If I could recall my act I 
would give this right hand. It was upon that memorable night in 
October, and the Court House bell was sounding an alarm of fire, 
but I paid no attention to it. You know we were accustomed to 
hear the fire bell often, and it didn't disturb us much when it 
sounded. I finished the sermon upon "What shall I do with 
Jesus?" And I said to the audience, "Now, I want you to take 
the question with you and think over it, and next Sunday I want 
you to come back and tell me what you are going to do with it. " 
What a mistake ! It seems now as if Satan was in my mind when 
I said this. Since then I never have dared give an audience a week 
to think of their salvation. If they were lost they might rise up 
in judgment against me. "Now is the accepted time. " We went 
down stairs to the other meeting, and I remember when Mr. 
Sankey was singing, and how his voice rang when he came to 
that pleading verse : 

To-day the Saviour calls; 
For refuge fly. 

The storm of justice falls, 

And death is nigh. 

After the meeting we went home. I remember going down La 

Salle street with a young man who is probably in the hall to-night, 

.and saw the glare of flames. I said to the young man: "This 

means ruin to Chicago." About one o'clock, Farwell Hall went; 



Decision. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 99 

soon the church in which I had preached went down, and every- 
thing was scattered. I never saw that audience again. My 
friends, we don't know what may happen to-morrow, but there 
is one thing I do know, and that is, if you take the gift you are 
saved. If you have eternal life you need not fear fire, death, or 
sickness. Let disease or death come, you can shout triumphant- 
ly over the grave if you have Christ. My friends, what are you 
going to do with Him to-night? Will you decide now? 



" A Day of Decision." 

I believe there is a day of decision in our lives — a day upon 
which the crisis of our lives occurs. There is a day when the 
Son of Man comes and stands at our heart and knocks and 
knocks for the last time and leaves us forever. I can imagine 
when Pilate was banished how this recollection troubled him day 
and night. He remembered how that Saviour had looked on him 
— how innocent He was; he remembered how, when the Jews 
were clamoring for His death, and the cry echoed through the 
streets of Jerusalem, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" It seemed 
as if He had nothing but love for them. Probably some one told 
him the story of the crucifixion, and how when nailed to the cross 
and the howling mob around Him, He cried, "Father, forgive 
them ; they know not what they do ; " he remembered how they 
clamored for his life, and how he hadn't the moral courage to 
stand up for the despised Nazarene, and that preyed upon his 
mind, and he put an end to his miserable existence. 



Moody Puts a Man in his " Prophet's Room." 

A few years ago as I stood at the door of a church giving out 
invitations to a meeting to take place that evening, a young man 
to whom I offered one said, "I want something more than that. 
I want something to do!" I urged him to come into the meet- 
ing, and after some remonstrance he consented. After the meet- 
ing I took him home, and after dinner I told him there was a room, 
which I called the "Prophet's Room," and up stairs was another 



ioo MOODY S ANECDOTES Decision. 

which I called the "Unbeliever's Room," and I would give him 
till night to decide which he would take. He was able by night 
to take the first, and the next day was at work urging young men 
to attend the noonday prayer-meeting. When I was burned out 
in the great fire and was left perfectly destitute, I received a let- 
ter with some money from this young man in Boston, who said : 
"You helped me and took me in your home, keeping me six weeks 
and refused to take anything for it, and I have never forgotten 
your kindness. " I had lost sight of him, but he had remembered 
that as a turning-point in his existence. 



GOLD. 

— If you receive Him it will be well; if you reject Him and are 
lost it will be terrible. 

— Thanks be to God, there is hope to-day; this very hour you 
can choose Him and serve Him. 

— Now just think a moment and answer the question, "What 
shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" 

■ — I believe in my soul that there are more at this day being 
lost for want of decision than for any other thing. 

— One of two things you must do ; you must either receive Him 
or reject Him. You receive Him here and He will receive you 
there; you reject Him here and He will reject you there. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



101 



DELIVERANCE. 



The Scotch Lassie. 

There is a story told of an incident that occurred during the 
last Indian mutiny. The English were besieged in the city of 
Lucknow, and were in momentary expectation of perishing at the 
hands of the fiends that surrounded them. There was a little 
Scotch lassie in this fort, and, while lying on the ground, she sud- 
denly shouted, her face aglow with joy, "Dinna ye hear them 
comin'; dinna ye hear them comin'?" "Hear what?" they asked, 
"Dinna ye hear them comin'?" And she sprang to her feet. It 
was the bagpipes of her native Scotland she heard. It was a na- 
tive air she heard that was being played by a regiment of her 
countrymen marching to the relief of those captives, and these 
deliverers made them free. Oh, my friends, don't you hear Jesus 
Christ crying to you to-night? 



Geo. H. Stewart Visits a Doomed Criminal. 

I remember hearing a story of Mr. George Stewart. One 
day the Governor of Pennsylvania came to him and said, "Mr. 
Stewart, I want you to go to such a prison and tell that man for 
whose execution I signed the warrant the other day, that there is 
not a ray of hope for him. When the day and hour comes he 
must be executed. His mother has been tormenting the life out 
of me, and all his friends have been running after me day and 
night, and they are giving the poor fellow a false hope." "That 
is a very disagreeable thing to do, Governor," answered Mr. Stew- 
art. "Well, I want you to go and tell him, so that he can be 
settled in his mind." The story goes that when the doors of the 
cell were opened, that prisoner seized Mr. Stewart's hands, and in 
his joy cried, "You are a good man. I know you have come 



102 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Deliverance. 

with a pardon from the Governor." But when Mr. Stewart told 
him the Governor had sent him to say there was not a ray of hope 
for him, that upon the day and hour he must be executed, the 
man completely broke down and fainted away. The thought that 
at such a day and such an hour he was going to be ushered into 
eternity, was too much for the poor fellow. Suppose I come to 
you to-night and tell you there is not a ray of hope — that you 
have broken the law of pardon. How many would say, "I know 
a great deal better. The blackest sinner on earth Christ can 
save. He says so." But, my friends, there is no hope without 
the deliverance to be free from the bondage of sin. 



The Demoniac. 

When this man found himself delivered he wanted to go with 
the Saviour. That was gratitude ; Christ had saved him, had re- 
deemed him. He had delivered him from the hand of the enemy. 
And this man cried : " Let me follow You around the world ; 
where You go I will go." But the Lord said, " You go home 
and tell your friends what good things the Lord has done for you." 
And he started home. I would like to have been in that house 
when he came there. I can imagine how the children would look 
when they saw him, and say, "Father is coming." "Shut the 
door," the mother would cry; "look out! fasten the window; bolt 
every door in the house." Many times he very likely had come 
and abused his family and broken the chairs and tables and turn- 
ed the mother into the street and alarmed all the neighbors. They 
see him now coming down the street. Down he comes till he 
gets to the door, and then gently knocks. You don't hear a 
sound as he stands there. At last he sees his wife at the window 
and he says, "Mary!" "Why," she says, "why he speaks as he 
did when I first married him; I wonder if he has got well?" So 
she looks out and asks: "John, is that you?" "Yes, Mary," he 
replies, ''it's me, don't be afraid any more, I'm well now." I see 
that mother, how she pulls back the bolts of that door, and looks 
at him. The first look is sufficient, and she springs into his arms 
and diners about his neck. She takes him in and asks him a 



Deliverance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 103 

hundred questions — how it all happened — all about it. "Well, 
just take a chair and I'll tell you how I got cured." The children 
hang back and look amazed. He says: "I was there in the 
tombs, you know, cutting myself with stones, and running about 
in my nakedness, when Jesus of Nazareth came that way. Mary, 
did you ever hear of Him? He is the most wonderful man; I've 
never seen a man like Him. He just ran in and told those devils 
to leave me, and they left me. When He had cured me I wanted 
to follow Him, but He told me to come home and tell you all 
about it. " The children by and by gather about his knee, and 
the elder ones run to tell their playmates what wonderful things 
Jesus has done for their father. Ah, my friends, we have got a 
mighty deliverer, I don't care what affliction you have, He will 
deliver you from it. The Son of God who cast out those devils 
can deliver you from your besetting sin. 



Spurgeon's Parable. 

Mr. Spurgeon, a number of years ago, made a parable. He 
thought he had a right to make one, and he did it. He said : 
"There was once a tyrant who ordered one of his subjects into 
his presence, and ordered him to make a chain. The poor black- 
smith — that was his occupation — had to go to work and forge the 
chain. When it was done he brought it into the presence of the 
tyrant, and he was ordered to take it away and make it twice the 
length. He brought it again to the tyrant, and again he was or- 
dered to double it. Back he came when he had obeyed the 
order, and the tyrant looked at it, and then commanded the ser- 
vants to bind the man hand and foot with the chain he had made 
and cast him into prison. "And," Mr. Spurgeon said, "that is 
what the devil does with man." He makes them forge their own 
chain, and then binds them hand and foot with it, and casts them 
into outer darkness." My friends, that is just what these drunk- 
ards, these gamblers, these blasphemers — that is just what every 
sinner is doing. But, thank God, we can tell you of a deliverer. 
The Son of God has power to break every one of these fetters if 
you will only come to Him. 



io4 MOODYS ANECDOTES Delivera?ice. 

GOLD. 

— The mightiest man that ever lived could not deliver himself 
from his sins. If a man could have saved himself, Christ would 
never have come into the world. 

— He came to deliver us from our sinful dispositions, and 
create in us pure hearts, and when we have Him with us it will not 
be hard for us. Then the service of Christ will be delightful. 

— If you are under the power of evil, and you want to get un- 
der the power of God, cry to Him to bring you over to His ser- 
vice; cry to Him to take you into His army. He will hear you ; He 
will come to you, and, if need be, He will send a legion of angels 
to help you to fight your way up to heaven. God will take you 
by the right hand and lead you through this wilderness, over 
death, and take you right into His kingdom. That's what the 
Son of Man came to do. He has never deceived us; just say 
here : " Christ is my deliverer. " 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 105 



EXCUSES. 



"I Have Intellectual Difficulties." 

There is another voice coming down from the gallery yon- 
der: "I have intellectual difficulties; I cannot believe." A man 
came to me sometime ago and said, "I cannot." "Cannot what?" 
I asked. "Well," said he, "I cannot believe." "Who?" "Well," 
he repeated, "I cannot believe." "Who?" I asked. "Well— I — 
can't — believe — myself." "Well, you don't want to." [Laughter.] 
Make yourself out false every time, but believe in the truth of 
Christ. If a man says to me, "Mr. Moody, you have lied to me; 
you have dealt falsely with me," it may be so, but no man on the 
face of the earth can say that God ever dealt unfairly, or that He 
lied to him. If God says a thing it is true. We don't ask you to 
believe in any man on the face of the earth, but we ask you to 
believe in Jesus Christ, who never lied — who never deceived any 
one. If a man says he cannot believe Him, he says what is 
untrue. 

I Am Not All Right. 

I had to notice during the war, when enlisting was going on, 
sometimes a man would come up with a nice silk hat on, patent- 
leather boots, nice kid gloves, and a fine suit of clothes, which, 
probably, cost him $100; perhaps the next man who came along 
would be a hod-carrier, dressed in the poorest kind of clothes. 
Both had to strip alike and put on the regimental uniform. So 
when you come and say you ain't fit, haven't got good clothes, 
haven't got righteousness enough, remember that He will furnish 
you with the uniform of Heaven, and you will be set down at the 
marriage feast of the Lamb. I don't care how black and vile 
your heart may be, only accept the invitation of Jesus Christ and 
He will make you fit to sit down with the rest at that feast. 



106 MOODY S ANECDOTES Excuses. 

" Those Hypocrites." 

"I won't accept this invitation because of those hypocrites in 
the churches. " My friend, you will find very few there if you get 
to heaven. There won't be a hypocrite in the next world, and if 
you don't want to be associated with hypocrites in the next Avorld, 
you will take this invitation. Why, you will find hypocrites 
everywhere. One of the apostles was himself the very prince of 
hypocrites, but he didn't get to heaven. You will find plenty of 
hypocrites in the church. They have been there for the last 
one thousand eight hundred years, and will probably remain there. 
But what is that to you? This is an individual matter between 
you and your God. 



<• I Can't Feel." 

"I can't feel," says one. That is the very last excuse. When 
a man comes with that excuse he is getting pretty near the Lord. 
We are having a body of men in England giving a new transla- 
tion of the Scriptures. I think we should get them to put in a 
passage relating to feeling. With some people it is feel, feel, feel 
all the time. What kind of feeling have you got? Have you got 
a desire to be saved, have you got a desire to be present at the 
marriage supper? Suppose a gentleman asked me to dinner, I 
say, "I will see how I feel." "Sick?" he might ask. "No; it 
depends on how I feel. " That is not the question — it is whether 
I will accept the invitation or not. The question with us is, will 
we accept salvation — will you believe? There is not a word 
about feelings in the Scriptures. When you come to your end, 
and you know that in a few days you will be in the presence of the 
Judge of all the earth, you will remember this excuse about feel- 
ings. You will be saying, "I went up to the Tabernacle, Ire- 
member, and I felt very good, and before the meeting was over I 
felt very bad, and I didn't feel I had the right kind of feeling to 
accept the invitation." Satan will then say, "I made you feel 
so. " Suppose you build your hopes and fix yourself upon the 
Rock of Ages, the devil cannot come to you. Stand upon the 



Excuses. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 107 

Word of God and the waves of unbelief cannot touch you, the 
waves of persecution cannot assail you; the devil and all the 
fiends of hell cannot approach you if you only build your hopes 
upon God's Word. Say, I will trust Him, though He slay me — I 
will take God at His word. 



I Am Not "One of the Elect." 

I can imagine some men saying, "Mr. Moody has not touch- 
ed my case at all. That is not the reason why I won't accept 
Christ. I don't know as I am one of the elect." How often I 
am met with this excuse — how often do I hear it in the inquiry 
room! How many men fold their arms and say, "If I am one of 
the elect I will be saved, and if I ain't I won't. No use of your 
bothering about it." Why don't some of those merchants say, 
"If God is going to make me a successful merchant in Chicago I 
will be one whether I like it or not, and if he isn't I won't." If 
you are sick, and a doctor prescribes for you, don't take the 
medicine, throw it out the door, it don't matter, for if God has 
decreed you are going to die, you will : if he hasn't, you will get 
better. If you use that argument you may as well not walk home 
from this tabernacle. If God has said you'll get home, you'll get 
home — you'll rly through the air; if you have been elected to go 
home. I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were 
going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty 
or forty years in heaven. He came down and spoke to John. One 
Lord's day in Patmos, He said to him, "Write these things to the 
churches. " John kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And 
then the Lord, when it was nearly finished, said, "John, before 
you close the book, put in this: 'The Spirit and the Bride say, 
Come; and let him that heareth say, Come.' But there will be 
some that are deaf, and they cannot hear, so add, ' Let him that 
is athirst, Come;' and in case there should be any that do not 
thirst, put it still broader, ' Whosoever will, let him take of the 
water of life freely.' " What more can you have than that? And 
the Book is sealed, as it were, with that. It is the last invitation 



108 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Excuses. 

in the Bible. "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life 
freely." You are thirsty. You want water. I hold out this 
glass to you, and say, "Take it." You say, "If I am decreed to 
have it, I am not going to put myself to the trouble of taking it. " 
Well, you will never get it. And if you are ever to have salva- 
tion, you must reach out the hand and take it. "I will take the 
cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. " 



"Why did he not take his Wife along? 

Take the excuses. There wasn't one that wasn't a lie. The 
devil made them all; and if the sinner hadn't one already the 
devil was there at his elbow to suggest one, about the truth of the 
Bible, or something of that sort. One of the excuses mentioned 
was that the man invited had bought a piece of ground, and had 
to look at it. Real estate and corner lots are keeping a good 
many men out of God's kingdom. It was a lie to say that he had 
to go and see it then, for he ought to have looked at it before he 
bought it. Then the next man said he'd bought some oxen, and 
must prove them. That was another lie; for if he hadn't proved 
them before he bought them he ought to have done so, and could 
have done it after supper just as well as before it. But the third 
man's excuse was the most ridiculous of them all. "I have mar- 
ried a wife and therefore cannot come. " Why did he not take 
his wife along with him? Who likes to go to a feast better than 
a young bride? He might have asked her to go too; and if she 
were not willing, then let her stay at home. The fact was, he did 
not want to go, 

A Good Excuse. 

If you have got a good excuse don't give it np for anything 
I have said; don't give it up for anything your mother may have 
said; don't give it up for anything your friend may have said. 
Take it up to the bar of God and state it to Him; but if you have 
not got a good excuse — an excuse that will stand in eternity — let it 
go to-night, and flee co the arms of a loving Saviour. 



Excuses. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 109 

Excused at Last. 

It is a very solemn thought that God will excuse you if you 
want to be excused. He does not wish to do it, but He will do 
it. "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of 
the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn 
ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of 
Israel " Look at the Jewish nation. They wanted to be ex- 
cused from the feast. They despised the grace of God and 
trampled it under foot, and look at them to-day ! Yes, it is easy 
enough to say, "I pray Thee have me excused," but by and by 
God may take you at your word, and say, "Yes, I will excuse 
you. " And in that lost world, while others who have accepted 
the invitation sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb, amid 
shouts and hallelujahs in heaven, you will be crying in the com- 
pany of the lost, "The harvest is past; the summer is ended, and 
I am not saved." 

The Invitation. 

Suppose we should write out here to-night this excuse, how 
would it sound? To the King of Heaven: — While sitting in the 

Tabernacle in the City of Chicago, January , 1877, 1 received 

a very pressing invitation from one of your servants to be present at 
the ??iarriage supper of your only-begotten Son. I Pray Thee 
have me excused." Would you sign that, young man? Would 
you, mother? Would you come up to the reporters' table, take 
up a pen and put your name down to such an excuse? You 
would say, "Let my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I sign that. " 

Just let me write out another answer : " To the King of 

Heaven: — While sitting in the Tabernacle, January , 1877, I 

received a pressing invitation fro?n o?ie of your messengers to be 
present at the marriage supper of your only -be gotten Son. I hasten 
to reply: By the grace of God I will be present. " Who 
will sign that? Is there one who will put his name to it? Is 
there no one who will say, "By the grace of God I will accept the 
invitation now"? 



no MOODY S ANECDOTES Excuses. 

GOLD. 

— There is not an excuse but is a lie. 

— God's service a hard one ! How will that sound in the judg- 
ment? 

— It is easy enough to excuse yourself to hell, but you cannot 
excuse yourself to heaven. 

— When a man prepares a feast, men rush in, but when God 
prepares one they all begin to make excuses, and don't want to 
go- 

— My friends, to accept this invitation is more important than 
anything else in this world. There is nothing in the world that is 
so important as the question of accepting the invitation. 

— If everybody could understand everything the Bible said 
it wouldn't be God's book; if Christians, if theologians, had stud- 
ied it for forty, fifty, sixty yeais, and then only began to under- 
stand it, how could a man expect to understand it by one read- 
ing? 

— If God were to take men at their word about these excuses, 
and swept every one into his grave who had an excuse, there 
would be a very small congregation in the Tabernacle next Sun- 
day; there would be little business in Chicago, and in a few weeks 
the grass would be growing on these busy streets. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



in 



FAITH. 



How Moody's Faith Saved an Infidel. 

When I was in Edinburgh, at the inquiry meeting in Assem- 
bly Hall, one of the ushers came around and said, "Mr. Moody, 
I'd like to put that man out; he's one of the greatest infidels in 
Edinburgh." He had been the chairman of an infidel club for 
years. I went around to where he was and sat down by him. 
"How is it with you, my friend?" I asked, and then he laughed 
and said, "You say God answers prayer; I tell you He doesn't. I 
don't believe in a God. Try it on me." "Will you get down 
with me and pray?" I asked him; but he wouldn't. So I got 
down on my knees beside him and prayed. Next night he was 
there again. I prayed, and quite a number of others prayed for 
him. A few months after that, away up in the north of Scotland, 
at Wick, I was preaching in the open air, and while I stood there 
I saw the infidel standing on the outskirts of the crowd. I went 
up to him at the close of the meeting and said: "How is it with 
you, my friend?" He laughed and said, "I told you your praying 
is all false; God hasn't answered your prayers; go and talk to 
these deluded people. " He had just the same spirit as before, 
but I relied on faith. Shortly after I got a letter from a barrister 
— a Christian. He was preaching one night in Edinburgh, when 
this infidel went up to him and said : " I want you to pray for 
me; I am troubled." The barrister asked, "What is the trouble?'' 
and he replied : " I don't know what's the matter, but I don't 
have any peace, and I want you to pray for me. " Next day he 
went around to that lawyer's office and he said that he had found 
Christ. 

This man now is doing good work, and I heard that out of 
thirty inquirers there, ten or twelve of his old associates and 



ii2 MOODY S ANECDOTES Faith. 

friends were among them. So, if you have God with you, and 
you go to work for Him, and you meet infidels and skeptics, just 
bear in mind that you can win through faith. When Christ saw 
the faith of those four men, He said to the man: "Thy sins 
are forgiven you." My friends, if you have faith all things are 
possible. 

Taking "the Prince at his Word." 

Some time ago I remember reading of an incident that oc- 
curred between a prince in a foreign land and one of his subjects. 
This man for rebellion against the government was going to be 
executed. He was taken to the guilotine block. When the poor 
fellow reached the place of execution he was trembling with fear. 
The prince was present and asked him if he wished anything be- 
fore judgment was carried out. The culprit replied: "A glass 
of water." It was brought to him, but he was so nervous he 
couldn't drink it. " Do not fear," said the prince to him, "judg- 
ment will not be carried out till you drink that water," and in an 
instant the glass was dashed to the ground and broken into a 
thousand pieces. He took that prince at his word. 



A Wife's Faith. 

In one of the towns in England there is a beautiful little 
chapel, and a very touching story is told in connection with it. 
It was built by an infidel. He had a praying wife, but he would 
not listen to her, would not allow her pastor even to take dinner 
with them ; would not look at the Bible, would not allow religion 
even to be talked of. She made up her mind, seeing she could 
not influence him by her voice, that every day she would pray to 
God at twelve o'clock for his salvation. She said nothing to him, 
but every day at that hour she told the Lord about her husband. 
At the end of twelve months there was no change in him. But 
she did not give up. Six months more went past. Her faith be- 
gan to waver, and she said, "Will I have to give him up at last? 
Perhaps when I am dead He will answer my prayers." When 
she had got to that point, it seemed just as if God had got her 



Faith. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 113 

where he wanted her. The man came home to dinner one day. 
His wife was in the dining-room waiting for him, but he didn't 
come in. She waited some time, and finally looked for him all 
through the house. At last she thought of going into the little 
room where she had prayed so often. There he was, praying at 
the same bed with agony, where she had prayed for so many 
months, asking forgiveness for his sins. And this is a lesson to 
you wives who have infidel husbands. The Lord saw that wo- 
man's faith and answered her prayers. 



Mr. Morehouse's Illustration. 

I remember Mr. Morehouse, while here four years ago, used 

an illustration which has fastened itself on my mind. He said, 

suppose you go up the street and meet a man whom you have 

known for the last ten years to be a beggar, and you notice a 

change in his appearance, and you say, "Halloo, beggar, what's 

come over you?" "I ain't no beggar. Don't call me beggar." 

"Why," you say, "I saw you the other day begging in the street." 

"Ah, but a change has taken place," he replies. "Is that so? how 

did it come about?" you inquire. "Well," he says, "I came out 

this morning and got down here intending to catch the business 

men and get all the money out of them, when one of them came 

up to me and said there was $10,000 deposited for me." "How 

do you know this is true?" you say. "I went to the bank and 

they put the money in my hand." "Are you sure of that?" you 

ask; "how do you know it was the right kind of a hand?" But 

he says; "I don't care whether it was the right kind of a hand or 

not; I got the money, and that's all I wanted." And so people 

are looking to see if they've got the right kind of a hand before 

they accept God by it. They have but to accept his testimony 

and they are saved, for, as John says, "He that hath received His 

testimony hath set his seal that God is true." Is there a man in 

this assemblage who will receive His testimony and set his seal 

that God is true? Proclaim that God speaks the truth. Make 

yourself a liar, but make God's testimony truthful. Take Him 

at His word. 

8 



ii4 MOODY S ANECDOTES Faith. 

Faith More Powerful than Gunpowder. 

I remember at one of the meetings at Nashville, during the 
war, a young man came to me, trembling from head to foot. 
"What is the trouble?" I asked. "There is a letter I got from 
my sister, and she tells me every night as the sun goes down she 
goes down on her knees and prays for me." This man was brave, 
had been in a number of battles ; he could stand before the can- 
non's mouth, but yet this letter completely upset him. " I have 
been trembling ever since I received it." Six hundred miles 
away the faith of this girl went to work, and its influence was felt 
by the brother. He did not believe in prayer; he did not believe 
in Christianity; he did not believe in his mother's Bible. This 
mother was a praying woman, and when she died she left on 
earth a praying daughter. And when God saw her faith and 
heard that prayer, he answered her. How many sons and daugh- 
ters could be saved if their mothers and fathers had but faith. 



GOLD. 

— God will honor our faith. 

— There is nothing on this earth that pleases Christ so much as 
faith. 

— Faith is the foundation of all society. We have only to look 
around and see this. 

— I believe there is no man in the world so constituted but 
he can believe in God's word. He simply tells you to believe 
in Him, and He will save you. 

— When I was converted twenty years ago I felt a faith in God ; 
but five years after I had a hundred times more faith, and five 
years ago I had more than ever, because I became better ac- 
quainted with Him. I have read up the Word, and I see that the 
Lord has done so and so, and then I have turned to where He 
has promised to perform it, and when I see this I have reason to 
believe in Him. 






AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 115 



FORGIVENESS. 



How Moody's Mother Forgave her Prodigal Son. 

I can give you a little experience of my own family. Before 
I was fourteen years old the first thing I remember was the death 
of my father. He had been unfortunate in business, and failed. 
Soon after his death the creditors came in and took everything. 
My mother was left with a large family of children. One calam- 
ity after another swept over the entire household. Twins were 
added to the family, and my mother was taken sick. The eldest 
boy was fifteen years of age, and to him my mother looked as 
a stay in her calamity, but all at once that boy became a wan- 
derer. He had been reading some of the trashy novels, and the 
belief had seized him that he had only to go away to make a for- 
tune. Away he went. I can remember how eagerly she used to 
look for tidings of that boy; how she used to send us to the post- 
office to see if there was a letter from him, and recollect how we 
used to come back with the sad news, "No letter." I remember 
how in the evenings we used to sit beside her in that New Eng- 
land home, and we would talk about our father; but the moment 
the name of that boy was mentioned she would hush us into 
silence. Some nights when the wind was very high, and the house, 
which was upon a hill, would tremble at every gust, the voice of 
my mother was raised in prayer for that wanderer who had treat- 
ed her so unkindly. I used to think she loved him more than 
all the rest of us put together, and I believe she did. On a 
Thanksgiving day — you know that is a family day in New Eng- 
land — she used to set a chair for him, thinking he would return 
home. Her family grew up and her boys left home. When I 
got so that I could write, I sent letters all over the country, but 
could find no trace of him. One day while in Boston the news 



MOODY S ANECDOTES Forgiveness. 



reached me that he had returned. While in that city, I remenv 
ber how I used to look for him in every store — he had a mark on 
his face — but I never got any trace. One day while my mother 
was sitting at the door, a stranger was seen coming toward the 
house, and when he came to the door he stopped. My mother 
didn't know her boy. He stood there with folded arms and 
great beard flowing down his breast, his tears trickling down his 
face. When my mother saw those tears she cried, "Oh, it's my 
lost son," and entreated him to come in. But he stood still. 
"No, mother," he said, "I will not come in till I hear first you 
have forgiven me. " Do you believe she was not willing to for- 
give him? Do you think she was likely to keep him long stand- 
ing there? She rushed to the threshold and threw her arms 
around him, and breathed forgiveness. Ah, sinner, if you but ask 
God to be merciful to you a sinner, ask Him for forgiveness, al- 
though your life has been bad — ask Him for mercy, and He will 
not keep you long waiting for an answer. 



A Rich Father visits his Dying Prodigal Son in a 
Garret and Forgives him. 

There is a story told of Mr. William Dawson, which I would 
like to relate. While preaching in London, one night at the close 
of his sermon, he said that there was not one in all London whom 
Christ could not save. In the morning a young lady called upon 
him and said: "Mr. Dawson, in your sermon last night you said 
that ' there was no man in all London whom Christ could not 
save.' I find a young man in my district who says he cannot be 
saved, and who will not listen to me. Won't you go and see 
him? I am sure you can do more with him than I can." Mr. 
Dawson readily assented, and went with the young lady to the 
East End — up one of those narrow streets there, and at the top 
of a rickety staircase found a garret, in which a man was stretched 
upon straw. He bent over him and said, "Friend." "Friend!" 
said the young man, turning upon him, "you must take me for 
some other person. I have no friends." "Ah," replied the 



Forgiveness. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 117 

Christian, "you are mistaken. Christ is the sinner's friend." The 
man thought this too good. "Why," said he, "my whole family 
have cast me off; every friend I had has left me, and no one 
cares for me. " Mr. Dawson spoke to him kindly, and quoted 
promise after promise — told him what Christ had suffered to give 
him eternal life. At first his efforts were fruitless, but finally the 
light of the gospel began to break in on the young man, and the 
first sign was his heart went out to those he had injured. And, 
my friends, this is one of the first indications of the acceptance of 
Christ with the sinner. He said: "I could die in peace now if 
my father would but forgive me." "Well," replied the man of 
God, "I will go and see your father and ask him for his forgive- 
ness." "No, no," was the sad answer of the young man, "you 
cannot go near him. My father has disinherited me ; he has taken 
my name from the family records ; he has forbidden the mention 
of my name in his house by any of the family or servants in his 
presence, and you needn't go." 

However, Mr. Dawson obtained the address, and went away 
to the West End of London, ascended the steps of a beautiful 
villa, and rang the bell. A servant in livery came to the door 
and conducted him to the drawing-room. There was everything 
in that house for comfort and luxury that money could purchase. 
He could not help contrasting the scene of poverty in that garret 
with the scene of luxuriant elegance everywhere around him. 
Presently a proud, haughty-looking merchant came in, and as he 
stepped forward to shake hands with Mr. Dawson that gentleman 
said: "I believe you have a son named Joseph?" and the mer- 
chant threw back his hand and drew himself up. " If you come 
to speak of him — that reprobate — I want you to go away. I have 
no son of that name. I disown him. If he has been talking to 
you he has been only deceiving you." "Well," replied Mr. Daw- 
son, "he is your boy now, but he won't be long." The father 
stood for a minute looking at the Christian, and then asked: "Is 
Joseph sick?" "Yes," was the reply, "he is at the point of death. 
I only came to ask your forgiveness for him, that he may die in 
peace. I don't ask any favor; when he dies we will bury him." 



n8 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Forgiveness. 

The father put his hands to his face and great tears rolled 
down his cheeks, as he said, "Can you take me to him?" In a 
x very short time he was in that narrow street where his son was 
dying, and as he mounted the filthy stairs it hardly seemed possi- 
ble that the boy could be in such a place. When he entered the 
garret he could hardly recognize his son, and when he bent over 
him the boy opened his eyes and said: "O, father, can you — 
will you forgive me?" and the father answered: "O Joseph, I 
would have forgiven you long ago if you had wanted me to." 
That haughty man laid his boy's head on his bosom and the son 
told him what Christ had done for him; how He had forgiven his 
sins, brought peace to his soul; how that Son of God had found 
him in that poor garret, and had done all for him. The father 
wanted the servant to take him home. "No, father," said the 
boy, "I have but a short time to live, and I would rather die 
here." He lingered a few hours, and passed from that garret in 
the East End to the everlasting hills. 



Moody in a Billiard Hall. — A Remarkable Story. 

In a meeting recently a man got up. I didn't know him at 
first. When I was here he was a rum seller, and broke up his 
business and went to the mountains. This is how it happened. 
When I was here before, he opened a saloon and a grand billiard 
hall. It was one of the most magnificent billiard halls in Chicago, 
all elegantly gilded and frescoed. For the opening he sent me 
an invitation to be present, which I accepted, and went around 
before he opened it. I saw the partners and asked them if they 
would allow me to bring a friend. They said certainly, but asked 
me who it was. Well, I said it wasn't necessary to tell who it 
was, but said I, "I never go without him. " They began to mistrust 
me. "Who is it?" they again inquired. "Well, I'll come with him 
and if I see anything wrong I'll ask him to forgive you. " "Come," 
said they, "we don't want any praying." "You've given me an 
invitation, and I am going to come." "But if you do come you 
needn't pray." "Well," said I, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll 
compromise the matter, and if you don't want me to come and 



Forgiveness. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 119 

pray for you when you open, let me pray for both of you now, " 
which they agreed to. It turned out that one of them had a pray- 
ing mother, and the prayer touched his heart, and the other had 
a sister in heaven. I asked God to bless their souls, and just to 
break their business to pieces. In a few months their business 
did go all to pieces. The man who got up in the prayer meeting 
told me a story that touched my soul. He said with his business 
he hadn't prospered — he failed, and went away to the Rocky 
Mountains. Life became a burden to him and he made up his 
mind that he would go to some part of the mountains and put an 
end to his days. He took a sharp knife with him which he pro- 
posed driving into his heart. He sought a part of the mountains 
to kill himself. He had the knife ready to plunge into his heart, 
when he heard a voice — it was the voice of his mother. He re- 
membered her words when she was dying, even though he was a 
boy. He heard her say, "Johnny, if you get into trouble, pray." 
That knife dropped from his hand, and he asked God to be mer- 
ciful to him. He was accepted, and he came back to Chicago 
and lifted up his voice for Him. He may be in this Tabernacle 
to-night. Just the moment he cried for mercy he got it. If you 
only cry, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," He will hear you. 



Moody and the Judge. 

A number of years ago as I was coming out of a daily prayer 
meeting in one of our Western cities, a lady came up to me and 
said: "I want to have you see my husband and ask him to come 
to Christ." She says, "I want to have you go and see him." She 
told me his name, and it was a man I had heard of before. 
"Why," said I, "I can't go and see your husband. He is a book- 
ed infidel. I can't argue with him. He is a good deal older than 
I am, and it would be out of place. Then I am not much for in- 
fidel argument." "Well, Mr. Moody," she says, "that ain't what 
he wants. He's got enough of that. Just ask him to come to 
the Saviour." She urged me so hard and so strong, that I con- 
sented to go. I went to the office where the judge was doing 
business, and told him what I had come for. He laughed at me. 



MOODY'S ANECDOTES Forgiveness. 



" You are very foolish," he said, and began to argue with me. I 
said, "I don't think it will be profitable for me to hold an argu- 
ment with you. I have just one favor I want to ask of you, and 
that is, that when you are converted you will let me know." 
" Yes," said he, " I will do that. When I am converted I will 
let you know" — with a good deal of sarcasm. 

I went off, and requests for prayer were sent here and to 
Fulton street, New York, and I thought the prayers there and of 
that wife would be answered if mine were not. A year and a 
half after, I was in that city, and a servant came to the door and 
said: "There is a man in the front parlor who wishes to see you." 
I found the Judge there ; he said : " I promised I would let you 
know when I was converted." "Well," said I, "tell me all about 
it." I had heard it from other lips, but I wanted to hear it from his 
own. He said his wife had gone out to a meeting one night and 
he was home alone, and while he was sitting there by the fire he 
thought : " Supposing my wife is right, and my children are right ; 
suppose there is a heaven and a hell, and I shall be separated 
from them. " His first thought was, "I don't believe a word of 
it." The second thought came, "You believe in the God that 
created you, and that the God that created you is able to teach 
you. You believe that God can give you life." "Yes, the God 
that created me can give me life. I was too proud to get down 
on my knees by the fire, and I said, 'O God, teach me.' And as 
I prayed, I don't understand it, but it began to get very dark, and 
my heart got very heavy. I was afraid to tell my wife, and I pre- 
tended to be asleep. She kneeled down beside that bed, and I 
knew she was praying for me. I kept crying, l O God, teach me.' 
I had to change my prayer, ' O God save me ; O God, take away 
this burden.' But it grew darker and darker, and the load grew 
heavier and heavier. All the way to my office I kept crying, ' O 
God, take away this load of guilt; I gave my clerks a holiday, 
and just closed my office and locked the door. I fell down on 
my face; I cried in agony to my Lord, ' O Lord, for Christ's sake 
take away this guilt.' I don't know how it was, but it began to 
grow very light. I said, I wonder if this isn't what they call con- 



Forgiveness. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 121 



version. I think I will go and ask the minister if I am not con- 
verted. I met my wife at the door and said, ' My dear, I've been 
converted.' She looked in amazement. ' Oh it's a fact ; I've 
been converted! We went into that drawing-room and" knelt 
down by the sofa and prayed to God to bless us. " The old Judge 
said to me, the tears trickling down his cheeks, "Mr. Moody, I've 
enjoyed life more in the last three months than in all the years of 
my life put together." If there is an infidel here — if there is a 
skeptical one here, ask God to give you wisdom to come now. 
Let us reason together, and if you become acquainted with God 
the day will not go before you receive light from Him. 



Reuben Johnson Pardoned. 

I want to tell you a scene that occurred some time ago. Our 
Commissioner went to the Governor of the State and asked him 
if he wouldn't pardon out five men at the end of six months who 
stood highest on the list for good behavior. The Governor con- 
sented, and the record was to be kept secret; the men were not 
to know anything about it. The six months rolled away and the 
prisoners were brought up — 1,100 of them — and the President of 
the commission came up and said : "I hold in my hand pardons 
for five men. " I never witnessed anything like it. Every man 
held his breath, and you could almost hear the throbbing of every 
man's heart. "Pardon for five men," and the Commissioner went 
on to tell the men how they had got these pardons — how the 
Governor had given them, but the Chaplain said the surprise was 
so great that he told the Commissioner to read the names first and 
tell the reason afterward. The first name was called — ' Reuben 
Johnson' — and he held out the pardon, but not a man moved. 
He looked all around, expecting to see a man spring to his feet 
at once; but no one moved. The Commissioner turned to the 
officer of the prison and inquired: "Are all the convicts here?" 
"Yes," was the reply, "Reuben Johnson, come forward and get 
your pardon; you are no longer a criminal." Still no one moved. 

The real Reuben Johnson was looking all the time behind 
him, and around him to see where Reuben was. The Chaplain 



MOODY'S ANECDOTES Forgiveness. 



saw him standing right in front of the Commissioner, and beck- 
oned to him; but he only turned and looked around him, think- 
ing that the Chaplain might mean some other Reuben. A sec- 
ond time he beckoned to Reuben and called to him, and a sec- 
ond time the man looked around. At last the Chaplain said to 
him: "You are the Reuben." He had been there for nineteen 
years, having been placed there for life, and he could not con- 
ceive it would be for him. At last it began to dawn upon him. 
and he took the pardon from the Commissioner's hand, saw his 
name attached to it, and wept like a child. This is the way 
that men make out pardons for men; but, thank God, we have 
not to come to-night and say we have pardons for only five men 
— for those who have behaved themselves. We have assurance of 
pardon for every man. " Whosoever will, let him take the water 
of life freely." 

GOLD. 

— All you have got to do is to prove that you are a sinner, and 
I will prove that you have got a Saviour. 

— Do you believe the Lord will call a poor sinner, and then 
cast him out? No! his word stands forever, "Him that cometh 
unto Me I will in no wise cast out. " 

— If God put Adam out of this earthly Eden on account of 
one sin, do you think He will let us into the Paradise above with 
our tens of thousands sins upon us. 

— The only charge they could bring against Christ down here 
was, that He was receiving bad men. They are the very kind of 
men He is willing to receive. 

— "Lord, you don't really mean that we shall preach the Gos- 
pel to those men that murdered you, to those men that took your 
life?" "Yes," says the Lord, "go and preach the Gospel to those 
Jerusalem sinners." I can imagine Him saying: "Go and hunt up 
that man that put the cruel crown of thorns upon My brow, and 
preach the Gospel to him. Tell him he shall have a crown in 
My kingdom without a thorn in it." 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 123 



GRACE. 



Moody's First Sermon on Grace. 

I remember preaching one night in winter — one of the cold- 
est winters we had — the winter after the Chicago fire. I had been 
studying up grace, and it was the first time I had spoken of it, 
and I was just full of it. I started out of the house, I remember, 
and the first man I met I asked him if he knew anything about 
the grace of God, and I tried to preach to him. This man thought 
I was crazy. I ran on and met another, and finally got up to 
the meeting. That night I thought I was speaking to a lot of 
people who felt as I did about grace, and when I got through I 
asked any one who would like to hear about grace — who had any 
interest in it, to stay. I expected some would have stayed, but 
what was my mortification to see the whole audience rise up and 
go away. They hadn't any interest in grace; they didn't want to 
learn anything about grace. I put my coat and hat on and was 
going out of the hall, when I saw a poor fellow at the back of the 
furnace crying. "I want to hear about the grace of God," said he. 
"You're the man I want, then," said I. "Yes," the poor fellow 
said, "you said in your sermon that it was free, and I want you 
to tell me something about it. " Well, I got to talking to him, 
and he told me a pitiful stoty. He had drank away twenty thou- 
sand dollars, his home had been broken up, and his wife and 
children had left him. I spoke to him, and it was not long be- 
fore we were down together praying. That night I got him a 
night's lodging in the Bethel, .and next day we got him on his feet, 
and when I went to Europe he was one of the most earnest work- 
ers we had. He was just a partaker ot grace — believed that the 
peace of God was sufficient for him, and he took God at his word 
and he was a saved man. 



i2 4 MOODY S ANECDOTES Grace. 

Dr. Arnott's Dog " Rover." 

I remember when Dr. Arnott, who has gone to God, was de- 
livering a sermon, he used this illustration. The sermon and text 
have all gone, but that illustration is fresh upon my mind to-night 
and brings home the truth. He said: "You have been some- 
times out at dinner with a friend, and you have seen the faithful 
household dog standing watching every mouthful his master takes. 
All the crumbs that fall on the floor he picks up, and seems eager 
for them, but when his master takes a plate of beef and puts it on 
the floor and says, 'Rover, here's something for you,' he comes 
up and smells of it, looks at his master, and goes away to a cor- 
ner of the room. He was willing to eat the crumbs, but he 
wouldn't touch the roast beef — thought it was too good for him." 
That is the way with a good many Christians. They are willing 
to eat the crumbs, but not willing to take all God wants. Come 
boldly to the throne of grace and get the help we need; there is 
an abundance for every man, woman and child in the assem- 
blage. 



Young Moody Penniless in Boston is Warned by his 
Sister to " Beware of Pickpockets." 

I remember when I was a boy and went to Boston, I went 
to the postoffice two or three times a day to see if there was a 
letter for me. I knew there was not, as there was but one mail 
a day. I had not had any employment and was very homesick, 
and so went constantly to the postoffice, thinking perhaps when 
the mail did come in my letter had been mislaid. At last, how- 
ever, I got a letter. It was from my youngest sister, the first let- 
ter she ever wrote to me. I opened it with a light heart thinking 
there was some good news from home, but the burden of the 
whole letter was that she had heard there were pickpockets in 
Boston, and warned me to take care of them. I thought I had 
better get some money in hand first, and then I might take care 
of pickpockets. And so you must take care to remember salva- 
tion is a gift. You don't work for salvation, but work day and 



Grace. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 125 

night after you have got it. Get it first before you do anything, 
but don't try to get it yourself. Look at what Paul says in Ephe- 
sians: "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of 
yourself, it is the gift of God"— it is the gift of God— "Not of 
works, lest any man should boast. " There is one thing we know: 
We have all got to get into heaven the same way. We cannot 
work our way there; we have to take our salvation from God. 



A Heavy Draw on Alexander the Great. 

There is a story told of Alexander the Great. A general in 
his army was a great favorite with him, and he told him to draw 
anything from his treasury that he wanted. Well, he presented a 
bill to the treasurer, and the treasurer wouldn't honor it. It was 
for such an enormous amount that the treasurer was astonished. 
The General went rushing to the Emperor and told him, and he 
called the treasurer and said, "Didn't I tell you to honor the draft 
of the General." "But," replied the treasurer, "do you under- 
stand its amount?" "Never mind what it is," replied the Empe- 
ror, "he honors me and my kingdom by making a great draft." 
And so we honor God by asking for grace in abundance. I tell 
you, my friends, it is a pity there are so many half-starved, mean 
Christians around when God says, "Come and get all you want." 



A Long Ladder Tumbles to the Ground. 

I remember hearing of a man who dreamt that he built a lad- 
der from earth to heaven, and when he did a good deed up went 
his ladder a few feet. When he did a very good deed his ladder 
went higher, and when he gave away large sums of money to the 
poor up it went further still. By and by it went out of sight, and 
years rolled on, and it went up, he thought, past the clouds, clear 
into heaven. When he died he thought he would step off his lad- 
der into heaven, but he heard a voice roll out from paradise, 
"He that climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a rob- 
ber, " and down he came, ladder and all, and he awoke. He said 
if he wanted to get salvation he must get it another way than by 
good deeds, and he took the other way. 



126 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Grace. 

GOLD. 

— We must not limit the mighty grace of God. 

— Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift of God to 
man the moment he sees he is unworthy of God's favor. 

— A man does not get grace till he comes down to the ground, 
till he sees he needs grace. When a man stoops to the dust and 
acknowledges that he needs mercy, then it is that the Lord will 
give him grace. 

— If you are ready to partake of grace you have not to atone 
for your sins — you have merely to accept of the atonement. All 
that you want to do is to cry, "God have mercy upon me," and 
you will receive the blessing. 

— "The grace of God hath power to bring salvation to all men, " 
and if a man is unsaved it is because he wants to work it out ; he 
wants to receive salvation in some other way than God's way; 
but we are told that "he that climbeth up another way, the same 
is a thief and a robber. " 

— When we get full of this grace we want to see every one 
blessed — we want to see all the churches blessed, not only all the 
churches here, but in the whole country. That was the trouble 
with Christ's disciples. He had hard work to make them under- 
stand that His gospel was for every one, that it was a stream to 
flow out to all nations of the earth. They wanted to confine it 
to the Jews, and He had to convince them that it was for every 
living being. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 127 



HEAVEN, 



Moody in a California Sunday School. 

I remember when I went to California just to try and get a 
few souls saved on the Pacific coast, I went into a school there 
and asked, "Have you got some one who can write a plain hand?" 
"Yes." Well, we got up the blackboard, and the lesson upon it 
proved to be the very text we have to-night. " "Lay up for your- 
selves treasures in heaven." And I said, "Suppose we write 
upon that board some of the earthly treasures? And we will begin 
with ' gold.' " The teacher readily put down gold, and they all 
comprehended it, for all had run to that country in the hope of 
finding it. "Well, we will put down ' houses' next, and then 'land.' 
Next we will put down 'fast horses.'" They all understood what 
fast horses were — they knew a good deal more about fast horses 
than they knew about the kingdom of God. Some of them, I 
think, actually made fast horses serve as Gods. "Next we will 
put down 'tobacco.'" The teacher seemed to shrink at this. 
"Put it down," said I, "many a man thinks more of tobacco than 
he does of God. Well, then, we will put down 'rum.'" He ob- 
jected to this — didn't like to put it down at all. "Down with it. 
Many a man will sell his reputation, will sell his home, his wife, 
his children, everything he has, for rum. It is the God of some 
men. Many here in Chicago will sell their present and then eter- 
nal welfare for it. Put it down," and down it went. " Now," 
said I, " suppose we put down some of the heavenly treasures. 
Put down ' Jesus' to head the list, then ' heaven/ then ' River of 
Life,' then ' Crown of Glory,' and went on till the column was 
filled, and then just drew a line and showed the heavenly and the 
earthly things in contrast. My friends, they could not stand 
comparison. If a man just does that, he cannot but see the su- 
periority of the heavenly over the earthly treasures. Well, it turn- 



128 MOODY S ANECDOTES Heaven. 

ed out that the teacher was not a Christian. He had gone to 
California on the usual hunt — gold; and when he saw the two 
columns placed side by side, the excellence of the one over the 
other was irresistible, and he was the first soul God gave me on 
that Pacific coast. He accepted Christ, and that man came to 
the station when I was coming away and blessed me for coming 
to that place. 

Mothers are Looking Down from Heaven. 

I remember in the Exposition building in Dublin, while I 
was speaking about Heaven, I said something to the effect that 
at this moment a mother is looking down from Heaven expecting 
the salvation of her daughter here to-night, and I pointed down 
to a young lady in the audience. Next morning I received this 
letter : 

"On Wednesday, when you were speaking of heaven, you 
said, * It may be this moment there is a mother looking down 
from heaven expecting the salvation of her child who is here.' 
You were apparently looking at the very spot where my child 
was sitting. My heart said, 'That is my child. That is her moth- 
er.' Tears sprang to my eyes. I bowed my head and prayed, 
' Lord, direct that word to my darling child's heart ; Lord save my 
child.' I was then anxious till the close of the meeting, when I 
went to her. She was bathed in tears. She rose, put her arms 
around me, and kissed me. When walking down to you she told 
me it was that same remark — about the mother looking down 
from heaven — that found the way home to her, and asked me, 
"Papa, what can I do for Jesus?'" 



The Rich Man Poor. 

I heard of a farmer who, when a friend of mine called upon 
him to give something for the Christian Commission, promptly 
drew a check for ten thousand dollars. He wanted the agent to 
have dinner with him, and after they had dined the farmer took 
the man out on the verandah and pointed to the rich lands sweep- 
ing far away, laden with rich products. "Look over these lands," 






Heaven. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 129 

said the farmer, "They are all mine." He took him to the past- 
ure and showed the agent the choice stock, the fine horses he 
had, and then pointed to a little town, and then to a large hall 
where he lived; he drew himself up, and his face lit up with pride 
as he said, "They are all mine. I came here when a poor boy 
and I have earned all that you see." When he got through, my 
friend asked him, "Well, what have you got up yonder?" 
"Where?" replied the farmer, who evidently knew where my 
friend meant. "What have you got in heaven?" "Well, " said the 
farmer, "I haven't anything there." "What!" replied my friend, 
"you, a man of your discretion, wisdom, business ability, have 
made no provision for your future?" He hadn't, and in a few 
weeks he died — a rich man here and a beggar in eternity. A 
man may be wise in the eyes of the world to pursue this course, 
but he is a fool in the sight of God. Wealth to most men proves 
nothing more or less than a great rock upon which their eternity 
is wrecked. 

The Dying Boy. 

But I have another anecdote to tell. It was Ralph Wallace 
who told me of this one. A certain gentleman was a member of 
the Presbyterian Church. His little boy was sick. When he 
went home his wife was weeping, and she said, " Our boy is dy- 
ing; he has had a change for the worse. I wish you would go in 
and see him. " The father went into the room and placed his 
hand upon the brow of his dying boy, and could feel that the 
cold, damp sweat was gathering there; that the cold, icy hand of 
death was feeling for the chords of life. "Do you know, my boy, 
that you are dying?" asked the father. "Am I? Is this death? 
Do you really think I am dying?" "Yes, my son, your end on 
earth is near." "And will I be with Jesus to-night, father?" 
"Yes, you will be with the Saviour." "Father, don't you weep, 
for when I get there I will go right straight to Jesus and tell Him 
that you have been trying all my life to lead me to Him." God 
has given me two little children, and ever since I can remember I 
have directed them to Christ, and I would rather they carried this 
9 



130 MOODY S ANECDOTES Heaven. 

message to Jesus — that I had tried all my life to lead them to 
Him — than have all the crowns of the earth; and I would rather 
lead them to Jesus than give them the wealth of the world. If 
you have got a child go and point the way. I challenge any man 
to speak of heaven without speaking of children. "For of such 
is the kingdom of heaven." 

A Sad and Singular Story. 
When I was a young boy — before I was a Christian — I was 
in a field one day with a man who was hoeing. He was weeping, 
and he told me a strange story, which I have never forgotten. 
When he left home his mother gave him this text: "Seek first the 
kingdom of God." But he paid no heed to it. He said when he 
got settled in life, and his ambition to get money was gratified, it 
would be time enough then to seek the kingdom of God. He 
went from one village to another and got nothing to do. When 
Sunday came he went into a village church, and what was his 
great surprise to hear the minister give out the text, "Seek first 
the kingdom of God. " He said the text went down to the bottom 
of his heart. He thought that it was but his mother's prayer fol- 
lowing him, and that some one must have written to that minister 
about him. He felt very uncomfortable, and when the meeting 
was over he could not get that sermon out of his mind. He went 
away from that town, and at the end of a week went into another 
church and he heard the minister give out the same text, "Seek 
first the kingdom of God. " He felt sure this time that it was the 
prayers of his mother, but he said calmly and deliberately, "No, 
I will first get wealthy. " He said he went on and did not go into 
a church for a few months, but the first place of worship he went 
into he heard a third minister preaching a sermon from the same 
text. He tried to drown — to stifle his feelings; tried to get the 
sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he would keep away 
from church altogether, and for a few years did keep out of God's 
house. "My mother died, " he said, "and the text kept coming up 
in my mind, and I said I will try and become a Christian." The 
tears rolled down his cheeks as he said, "I could not; no sermon 



Heaven. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 131 

ever touches me ; my heart is as hard as that stone, " pointing to 
one in the field. I couldn't understand what it was all about — 
it was fresh to me then. I went to Boston and got converted, and 
the first thought that came to me was about this man. When I 

got back I asked my mother, "Is Mr. L living in such a 

place?" "Didn't I write to you about him?" she asked. "They 
have taken him to an insane asylum, and to every one who goes 
there he points with his finger up there and tells him to "seek first 
the Kingdom of God. " There was that man with his eyes dull 
with the loss of reason, but the text had sunk into his soul — it 
had burned down deep. Oh, may the Spirit of God burn the text 
into your hearts to-night. When I got home again my mother 
told me he was in her house, and I went to see him. I found 
him in a rocking chair, with that vacant, idiotic look upon him. 
Whenever he saw me he pointed at me and said: "Young man, 
seek first the kingdom of God." Reason was gone, but the text 
was there. Last month when I was laying my brother down in 
his grave I could not help thinking of that poor man who was 
lying so near him, and wishing that the prayer of his mother had 
been heard, and that he had found the kingdom of God. 



The Eleventh Commandment. 

There are a great many people who forget that there are 
eleven commandments. They think there are only ten. The 
eleventh commandment is : "Lay up for yourselves treasures hi 
heaven." How many of us remember — ah ! how many people in 
Chicago forget the words of the Lord now in his wonderful ser- 
mon on the mount : " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break 
through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do 
not break through and steal." How few of our people pay any 
heed to these words. That's why there are so many broken 
hearts among us; that's why so many men and women are disap- 
pointed and going through the streets with shattered hopes; it's 
because they have not been laying up treasures in heaven. 



132 MOODY S ANECD01ES Heaven. 

"It's Better Higher Up." 

Not long ago there lived an old bed-ridden saint, and a Chris- 
tian lady who visited her found her always very cheerful. This 
visitor had a lady friend of wealth who constantly looked on the 
dark side of things, and was always cast down although she was 
a professed Christian. She thought it would do this lady good to 
see the bed-ridden saint, so she took her down to the house. She 
lived up in the garret, five stories up, and when they had got to the 
first story the lady drew up her dress and said, "How dark and 
filthy it is!" "It's better higher up," said her friend. They got 
to the next story, and it was no better; the lady complained again, 
but her friend replied, "It's better higher up." At the third floor 
it seemed still worse, and the lady kept complaining, but her 
friend kept saying, "It's better higher up." At last they got to 
the fifth story, and when they went into the sick-room, there was 
a nice carpet on the floor, there were flowering plants in the 
window, and little birds singing. And there they found this bed- 
ridden saint — one of those saints whom God is polishing for his 
own temple — just beaming with joy. The lady said to her, "It 
must be very hard for you to lie here." She smiled, and said, 
u Ifs better higher up." Yes ! And if things go against us, my 
friends, let us remember that "it's better higher up." 



Calling the Roll of Heaven. 

A soldier, wounded during our last war, lay dying in his cot. 
Suddenly the deathlike stillness of the room was broken by the 
cry, "Here ! Here !" which burst from the lips of the dying man. 
Friends rushed to the spot and asked what he wanted. "Hark," 
he said, "they are calling the roll of heaven, and I am answering 
to my name." In a few moments once more he whispered, 
"Here!" and passed into the presence of the King. 



GOLD. 

— The way to heaven is straight as an arrow. 

— Heaven is just as much a place as Chicago. It is a destination. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 133 



INFIDELITY. 



The Young French Nobleman and the Doctor. 

In London, when I was there in 1867, I was told a story 
which made a very deep impression upon me. A young French 
nobleman came there to see a doctor, bringing letters from the 
French Emperor. The Emperor Napoleon III. had a great re- 
gard for this young man, and the doctor wanted to save him. He 
examined the young man, and saw there was something on his 
mind. "Have you lost any property? What is troubling you? 
You have something weighing upon your mind," said the doctor. 
"Oh, there is nothing particular." "I know better; have you lost 
any relations?" asked the doctor. "No, none within the last three 
years." "Have you lost any reputation in your country?" "No." 
The doctor studied for a few minutes, and then said, "I must 
know what is on your mind; I must know what is troubling you." 
And the young man said, "My father was an infidel; my grand- 
father was an infidel, and I was brought up an infidel, and for the 
last three years these words have haunted me, ' Eternity, and 
where shall it find me?' " "Ah," said the doctor, "you have come 
to the wrong physician." "Is there no hope for me?" cried the 
young man. " I walk about in the day time ; I lie down at night, 
and it comes upon me continually: 'Eternity, and where shall I 
spend it?' Tell me, is there any hope for me?" The doctor said : 
"Now just sit down and be quiet. A few years ago I was an in- 
fidel. I did not believe in God, and was in the same condition 
in which you are in." The doctor took down his Bible and turn- 
ed to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and read: "He was wound- 
ed for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the 
chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we 
are healed." And he read on through this chapter. 



134 MOODY S ANECDOTES Infidelity. 

When he had finished, the young man said : "Do you believe 
this, that He voluntarily left heaven, came down to this earth, 
and suffered and died that we might be saved?" "Yes, I believe 
it. That brought me out of infidelity, out of darkness into light." 
And he preached Christ and His salvation and told him of heaven 
and then suggested that they get down on their knees and pray. 
And when I went there in 1867 a letter had been received from 
that young nobleman, who wrote to* Dr. Whinston in London, 
telling him that the question of "eternity, and where he should 
spend it" was settled, and troubled him no more. My friends,* 
the question of eternity, and where we are going to spend it, 
forces itself upon every one of us. We are staying here for a little 
day. Our life is but a fibre and it will soon be snapped. I may 
be preaching my last sermon. To-night may find me in eternity. 
By the grace of God say that you will spend it in heaven. 



Sambo and the Infidel Judge. 

Once there was a Judge who had a colored man. The col- 
ored man was very godly, and the Judge used to have him to 
drive him around in his circuit. The Judge used often to talk 
with him, and the colored man would tell the Judge about his re- 
ligious experience, and about his battles and conflicts. One day 
the Judge said to him, "Sambo, how is it that you Christians are 
always talking about the conflicts you have with Satan. I am 
better off than you are. I don't have any conflicts or' trouble, 
and yet I am an infidel and you are a Christian — always in a 
muss — how's that, Sambo?" This floored the colored man for a 
while. He didn't know how to meet the old infidel's argument. 
So he shook his head sorrowfully and said: "I dunno, Massa, I 
dunno." The Judge always carried a gun along with him for 
hunting. Pretty soon they came to a lot of ducks. The Judge 
took his gun and blazed away at them, and wounded one and 
killed another. The Judge said quickly, "You jump in, Sambo, 
and get that wounded duck before he gets off," and did not pay 
any attention to the dead one. In went Sambo for the wounded 
duck and came out reflecting. The colored man then thought 



Infidelity. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 135 

he had an illustration. He said to the Judge: "I hab 'im now, 
Massa, I'se able to show you how de Christian hab greater con- 
flict den de infidel. Don't you know de moment you wounded 
dat ar duck, how anxious you was to get 'im out, and you didn't 
care for de dead duck, but just lef 'im alone!" "Yes," said the 
Judge. "Well," said Sambo, "ye see as how dat ar dead duck's 
a sure thing. I'se wounded, and I tries to get away from de 
debbil. It takes trouble to cotch me. But, massa, you are a 
dead duck — dar is no squabble for you. The debbil have you 
"sure!" So the devil has no conflict with the infidel. 



An Infidel who would not Talk Infidelity before his 
Daughter. 

Not long ago I went into a man's house, and when I com- 
menced to talk about religion he turned to his daughter and said : 
"You had better go out of the room; I want to say a few words 
to Mr. Moody. " When she had gone he opened a perfect tor- 
rent of infidelity upon me. "Why," said I, "did you send your 
daughter out of the room before you said this?" "Well," he re- 
plied, "I did not think it would do her any good to hear what I 
said." My friends, his "rock is not as our rock." Why did he 
send his daughter out of the room if he believed what he said? 
When these infidels are in trouble why do not they get some of 
their infidel friends to administer consolation? When they make 
a will why do they call in some follower of the Lord Jesus Christ 
to carry it out? Why, it is because they cannot trust their infi- 
del friends. 

A Dying Infidel's Confession. 

I want to read to you a letter which I received some time 
ago, I read this to you because I am getting letters from infidels 
who say that not an infidel has repented during our meetings. 
Only about ten days ago I got a letter from an infidel, who ac- 
cused me of being a liar. He said there had not been an infidel 
converted during our meetings. My friends, go up to the young 
converts' meeting any Monday night, and you will see there ten 



6 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Infidelity 



or twelve every night who have accepted Christ Why, nearly 
every night we meet with a poor infidel who accepts Christ. But 
let me read this letter. We get many letters every day for prayer, 
and, my friends, you don't know the stories that lie behind those 
letters. The letter I am about to read was not received here, 
but while we were in Philadelphia. When I received it I put it 
away, intending to use it at a future day: 

Dear Sir: Allow me the privilege of addressing you with 
a few words. The cause of writing is indeed a serious one. I 
am the son of an aristocratic family of Germany — was expensive- 
ly educated, and at college at Leipsic was ruined by drinking, 
etc.; was expelled for gambling and dishonesty. My parents 
were greatly grieved at my conduct, and I did not dare return 
home, but sailed for America. I went to St. Louis and remained 
there for want of money to get away. I finally obtained a situa- 
tion as bookkeeper in a dry goods house; heard from home and 
the death of my parents. This made me more sinful than ever 
before. I heard one of your sermons, which made a deep im- 
pression on me. I was taken sick, and the words of your text 
came to me and troubled me. , I have tried to find peace of God, 
but have not succeeded. My friends, by reasoning with me that 
there was no God, endeavored to comfort me. The thought of 
my sinfulness and approaching the grave, my blasphemy, my bad 
example, caused me to mourn and weep. I think God is too just 
to forgive me my sins. My life is drawing to a close. I have 
not yet received God's favor. Will you not remember me in your 
prayers, and beseech God to save my soul from eternal destruc- 
tion? Excuse me for writing this, but it will be the last I shall 
write this side of the grave. 



Infidel Books. 
If you stop to ask yourself why you don't believe in Christ, 
is there really any reason? People read infidel books and wonder 
why they are unbelievers, I ask why they read such books. They 
think they must read both sides. I say that book is a lie, how 
how can it be one side when it is a lie? It is not one side at all. 



Infidelity. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 137 

Suppose a man tells right down lies about my family, and I read 
them so as to hear both sides; it would not be long before some 
suspicion would creep into my mind. I said to a man once, 
"Have you got a wife?" "Yes, and a good one." I asked: "Now 
what if I should come to you and cast out insinuations against 
her?" And he said, "Well your life would not be safe long if you 
did." I told him just to treat the devil as he would treat a man 
who went around with such stories. We are not to blame for 
having doubts flitting through our minds, but for harboring them. 
Let us go out trusting the Lord with heart and soul to-day. 



How a Little Study Upset the Plans of a few Prom- 
inent Infidels. 

It is said of West, an eminent man, that he was going to 
take up the doctrine of the resurrection, and just show the world 
what a fraud it was, while Lord Lyttleton was going to take up 
the conversion of Saul, and just show the folly of it. These men 
were going to annihilate that doctrine and that incident of the 
gospel. A Frenchman said it took twelve fishermen to build up 
Christ's religion, but one Frenchman pulled it down. From 
Calvary this doctrine rolled along the stream of time, through the 
eighteen hundred years, down to us, and West got at it and be- 
gan to look at the evidence; but instead of his being able to cope 
with it he found it perfectly overwhelming — the proof that Christ 
had risen, that He had come out of the sepulcher and ascended 
to heaven and led captivity captive. The light dawned upon 
him, and he became an expounder of the word of God and a 
champion of Christianity. And Lord Lyttleton, that infidel and 
skeptic, hadn't been long at the conversion of Saul before the 
God of Saul broke upon his sight, and he too, began to preach. 



GOLD. 

■ — What reason have I for doubting God's own word? 
■ — I just as much believe that God sent Christ into the world to 
be the Saviour of the world, as I believe that I exist. 



138 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES 



INTEMPERANCE. 



Cast Out But Rescued. 

I met a man in New York who was an earnest worker, and 
I asked him to tell me his experience. He said he had been a 
drunkard for over twenty years. His parents had forsaken him, 
and his wife had cast him off and married some one else. He 
went into a lawyer's office in Poughkeepsie, mad with drink. 
This lawyer proved a good Samaritan, and reasoned with him, 
and told him he could be saved. The man scouted the idea. He 
said : "I must be pretty low when my father and mother, my wife 
and kindred, have cast me off, and there is no hope for me here 
or hereafter." But this good Samaritan showed him how it was 
possible to secure salvation, got him on his feet, got him on his 
beast, like the good Samaritan of old, and guided his face toward 
Zion. And this man said to me : " I have not drank a glass of 
liquor since." He is now leader of a young men's meeting in New 
York. I asked him to come last Saturday night to Northfield, 
my native town, where there are a good many drunkards, think- 
ing he might encourage them to seek salvation. He came and 
brought a young man with him. They held a meeting, and it 
seemed as if the power of God rested upon that meeting when 
these two men went on telling what God had done for them — 
how He had destroyed the works of the devil in their hearts, 
and brought peace and unalloyed happiness to their souls. These 
grog shops here are the works of the devil — they are ruining men's 
souls every hour. Let us fight against them, and let our prayers 
go up in our battles. It may seem a very difficult thing for us, 
but it is a very easy thing for God to convert rumsellers. 



Intemperance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 139 

The way of the Transgressor is Hard. 

There was a man whom I knew who was an inveterate 
drinker. He had a wife and children. He thought he could stop 
whenever he felt inclined, but he went the ways of most moder- 
ate drinkers. I had not been gone more than three years, and 
when I returned I found that that mother had gone down to her 
grave with a broken heart, and that man was the murderer of the 
wife of his bosom. Those children have all been taken away from 
him, and he is now walking up and down those streets homeless. 
But four years ago he had a beautiful and a happy home with his 
wife and children around him. They are gone; probably he will 
never see them again. Perhaps he has come in here to-night. 
If he has, I ask him: Is not the way of the tiansgressor hard? 



A Rum-Seller's Son Blows his Brains Out. 

Look at that rum-seller. When we talk to him he laughs at 
us. He tells you there is no hell, no future — there is no retribu- 
tion. I've got one man in my mind now who ruined nearly all 
the sons in his neighborhood. Mothers and fathers went to him 
and begged him not to sell their children liquor. He told them 
it was his business to sell liquor, and he was going to sell liquor 
to every one who came. The saloon was a blot upon the place 
as dark as hell. But the man had a father's heart. He had a son. 
He didn't worship God, but he worshiped that boy. He didn't 
remember that whatsoever a man soweth so shall he reap. My 
friends, they generally reap what they sow. It may not come 
soon, but the retribution will come. If you ruin other men's 
sons some other man will ruin yours. Bear in mind God is a 
God of equity; God is a God of justice. He is not going to 
allow you to ruin men and then escape yourself. If we go against 
his laws we suffer. Time rolled on and that young man became 
a slave to drink, and his life became such a burden to him that 
he put a revolver to his head and blew his brains out. The 
father lived a few years, but his life was as bitter as gall, and then 
went down to his grave in sorrow. Ah, my friends, it is hard to 
kick against the pricks. 



140 MOODY'S ANECDOTES Intemperance. 

A Distiller Interrogates Moody. 

In Europe in a place where there was a good deal of whisky 
distilled, one of the men in the business was a church member, 
and got a little anxious in his conscience about his business. He 
came and asked me if I thought that a man could not be an hon- 
est distiller. I said, You should do whatever you do for the glory 
of God. If you can get down and pray about a barrel of whis- 
ky, and say, for instance, when you sell it, "O Lord God, let 
this whisky be blessed to the world, " it is probably honest. 



The Most Hopeless Man in New York now a Sunday- 
School Superintendent. 

A young man in one of our meetings in New York got up and 
thrilled the audience with his experience. "I want to tell you," 
he said, "that nine months ago a Christian came to my house 
and said he wanted me to become a Christian. He talked to me 
kindly and encouragingly, pointing out the error of my ways, 
and I become converted. I had been a hard drinker, but since 
that time I have not touched a drop of liquor. If any one had 
asked who the most hopeless man in town was they would have 
pointed to me." To-day this man is the superintendent of a Sab- 
bath-school. Eleven years ago, when I went to Boston, I had a 
cousin who wanted a little of my experience. I gave him all the 
help I could, and he became a Christian. He did not know how 
near death was to him. He wrote to his brother and said: "I 
am very anxious to get your soul to Jesus. " The letter somehow 
went to another city, and lay from the 28th of February till the 
28th of March — just one month. He saw it was in his brother's 
handwriting, and tore it open and read the above words. It struck 
a chord in his heart, and was the means of converting him. And 
this was the Christian who led this drunken man to Christ. This 
young man had a neighbor who had drank for forty years, and he 
went to that neighbor and told him what God had done for him, 
and the result was another conversion. I tell you these things to 
encourage you to believe that the drunkard can be saved. 



Intemperance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 141 

A Remarkable Case. 

I may relate a little experience. In Philadelphia, at one of 
our meetings, a drunken man rose up. Till that time I had no 
faith that a drunken man could be converted. When any one 
approached he was generally taken out. This man got up and 
shouted, "I want to be prayed for." The friends who were with 
him tried to draw him away, but he shouted only louder, and for 
three times he repeated the request. His call was attended to 
and he was converted. God has power to convert a man even if 
he is drunk. 

"O Edward." 

I remember going into a young converts' meeting in Phila- 
delphia, where I heard a story that thrilled my soul. A young 
man said he had been a great drunkard. He had lost one situa- 
tion after another, till finally he came to the very dregs. He left 
Philadelphia, and went first to Washington, and then to Baltimore. 
One night he came back to Philadelphia. He had lost his key 
and could not get into his home. He was afraid to go into the 
house while the people were stirring, so he staid outside watching 
till all had retired. He knew that after that there would be at 
least one who would hear him and come to the door. He went to 
the door; he knocked; when he heard the footsteps of his mother. 
"O Edward, " said she, "I am so glad to see you." She did not re- 
prove him; did not rebuke him. He went up stairs and did not 
come down for two days. When he came to, the servants were 
walking about the house very softly — everything was quiet. They 
told him that his mother was at the point of death. His brother 
was a physician, and he went to him and asked him if it was so. 
"Yes, Ned," said he, "mother can't live." He immediately went 
up stairs, and asked his mother's forgiveness, and prayed to his 
mother's God to have mercy upon him. "And God," said he, 
"my mother's God, heard my prayers," and the tears trickled 
down his face and he said: "God has kept me straight these 
four years in the face of all trials." O sinner, ask for His grace 
and might; do not turn Him away. 



142 MOODY S ANECDOTES Intemperance. 

Moody Asks a Few Questions. 

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that those gam- 
blers, thieves, harlots, and drunkards who are trampling the ten 
commandments under their feet, they who have never given any 
respect to God's Word or to His instructions — do you think they 
will be swept into the kingdom of heaven, against their will? Do 
you think those antedeluvians who were so sinful that God could 
not let them live on the earth would be swept into Paradise 
and Noah left to wade through the deluge? Do you think that 
these people, too corrupt for earth, would go there? As I have 
said before, an unregenerated man in heaven would make a hell 
of it. An unregenerated man couldn't stay there. Why, some 
of you cannot wait an hour here to listen to the Word of God. Be- 
fore the hour expires you want to go out. Some of you just wish 
it was over so that you could go and get a drink in some of those 
saloons. I tell you, from the very depths of my heart, I believe 
heaven would be a hell to an unregenerated man. "I don't want 
to be here, " he would say. My friends, heaven is a prepared 
place for prepared people, and no one will ever see the kingdom 
of God without being born of God. 



The Drunken Father and his Praying Child. 

I remember when out in Kansas, while holding a meeting, I 
saw a little boy who came up to the window crying. I went to 
him and said: "My little boy, what is your trouble?" "Why, Mr. 
Moody, my mother's dead, and my father drinks, and they don't 
love me, and the Lord won't have anything to do with me because 
I am a poor drunkard's boy." "You have got a wrong idea, my 
boy, Jesus will love you and save you and your father too, " and 
I told him a story of a little boy in an Eastern city. The boy 
said his father would never allow the canting hypocrites of Chris- 
tians to come into his house, and would never allow his child to 
go to Sunday-school. A kind-hearted man got his little boy and 
brought him to Christ. When Christ gets into a man's heart he 
cannot help but pray. This father had been drinking one day and 
coming home he heard that boy praying. He went to him and 



Intemperance. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 143 

said : " I don't want you to pray any more. You've been along 
with some of those Christians. If I catch you praying again I'll 
flog you. " But the boy was filled with God and he couldn't help 
praying. The door of communication was opened between him and 
Christ, and his father caught him praying again. He went to him. 
"Didn't I tell you never to pray again? If I catch you at it once 
more you leave my house. " He thought he would stop him. One 
day the old tempter came upon the boy, and he did something 
wrong and got flogged. When he got over his mad fit he forgot 
the threats of his father and went to pray. His father had been 
drinking more than usual, and coming in found the boy offering 
a prayer. He caught the boy with a push and said, "Didn't I tell 
you never to pray again? Leave this house. Get your things 
packed up and go. " The little fellow hadn't many things to get 
together — a drunkard's boy never has, and went up to his moth- 
er's room. "Good-by, mother." "Where are you going?" "I 
don't know where I'll go, but father says I cannot stay here any 
longer; I've been praying again," he said. The mother knew it 
wouldn't do to try to keep the boy when her husband had ordered 
him away, so she drew him to her bosom and kissed him, and bid 
him good-by. He went to his brothers and sisters and kissed 
them good-by. When he came to the door his father was there 
and the little fellow reached out his hand — "Good-by, father; as 
long as I live I will pray for you, " and left the house. He hadn't 
been gone many minutes when the father rushed after him. "My 
boy, if that is religion, if it can drive you away from father and 
mother and home ; I want it." Yes, may be some little boy here 
to-night has got a drinking father and mother. Lift your voice to 
heaven, and the news will be carried up to heaven, "He prays." 



GOLD. 

— The drunkard, the open blasphemer, the worst sinners, are 
precisely the ones that need Jesus most. The well don't need 
Him at all. 

— There is many a gem in these billiard halls that only needs 
the way pointed out to fill their souls with the love of Christ. 



144 MOODY S ANECDOTES 



LIBERTY. 



Old Sambo and " Massa." 

A friend of mine said he was down in Natchez before the 
war, and he and a friend of his went out riding one Saturday — 
they were teaching school through the week — and they drove out 
back from Natchez. It was a beautiful day, and they saw an old 
slave coming up, and they thought they would have a little fun. 
They had just come to a place where there was a fork in the 
road, and there was a sign-post which read, "40 miles to Liber- 
ty." One of the young men said to the old darkey driver, 
" Sambo, how old are you?" "I don't know, massa. I guess 
I'se about eighty." "Can you read?" "No, sah; we don't read 
in dis country. It's agin the law. " " Can you tell what is on 
that sign-post?" "Yes, sah; it says 40 miles to Liberty." "Well, 
now," said my friend, "why don't you follow that road and get 
your liberty. It says there, ' only 40 miles to Liberty.' Now, 
why don't you take that road and go there?" The old man's 
countenance changed, and he said, "Oh, young massa, that is all 
a sham. If the post pointed out the road to the liberty that God 
gives, we might try it. There could be no sham in that. " My 
friend said he had never heard anything more eloquent from the 
lips of a preacher. God wants all his sons to have liberty. 



" Liberty Now and Forever." 

When Miss Smiley went down South to teach, she went to a 
hotel and found everything covered with dirt. The tables were 
dirty, dishes dirty, beds were dirty. So she called an old colored 
woman who was in the house, and said, "Now you know that the 
Northern people set you at liberty. I came from the North and I 
don't like dirt, so I wan't you to clean the house." The old col- 



Liberty. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 145 

ored woman set to work, and it seemed as if she did more 
work in that half day than she had done in a month before. 
When the lady got back the colored woman came to her and 
said, "Now, is I free or ben't I not? When I go to my old massa 
he says I ain't free, and when I go to my own people they say I 
is, and I don't know whether I'm free or not. Some people told 
me Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation, but massa says he 
didn't; he hadn't any right to. " So Christian people go along, 
not knowing whether they are free or not. Why, when they have 
the Spirit they are as free as air. Christ came for that. He didn't 
come to set us free and then leave us in servitude. He came to 
give us liberty now and forever. 



Out of Libby Prison. 

There was a story told me while I was in Philadelphia, by 
Capt. Trumbull. He said when he was in Libby Prison the news 
came that his wife was in Washington, and his little child was 
dying: and the next news that came was that his child was dead, 
and the mother remained in Washington in hopes that her hus- 
band could come with her and take that child off to New Eng- 
land and bury it ; but that was the last he heard. One day the 
news came into the prison that there was a boat up from City 
Point, and there were over nine hundred men in the prison re- 
joicing at once. They expected to get good news. Then came 
the news that there was only one man in that whole number that 
was to be let go, and they all began to say, "Who is it?" It was 
some one who had some influential friend at Washington that had 
persuaded the government to take an interest in him and get him 
out. The whole prison was excited. At last an officer came 
and shouted at the top of his voice, " Henry Clay Trumbull ! " 
The chaplain told me his name never sounded so sweet to him 
as it did that day. That was election, but you can't find any 
Henry Clay Trumbull in the Bible. There is no special case in 
the Bible. God's proclamations are to all sinners. Everybody 
can get out of prison that wants to. The trouble is, they don't 
want to go. They had rather be captives to some darling sin. 
10 



146 MOODY S ANECDOTES Liberty. 

An Emperor Sets Forty Million Slaves Free. 

Once the Emperor of Russia had a plan by which he was 
to liberate the serfs of that country. There were forty millions 
of them. Of some of them, their whole time was sold, of others, 
only a part. The Emperor called around him his council, and 
wanted to have them devise some way to set the slaves at liberty. 
After they had conferred about it for six months, one night the 
council sent in their decision, sealed, that they thought it was not 
expedient. The Emperor went down to the Greek Church that 
night and partook of the Lord's Supper, and he set his house in 
order, and the next morning you could hear the tramp of soldiers 
in the streets of St. Petersburgh. The Emperor summoned his 
guard, and before noon sixty-five thousand men were surround- 
ing that palace. Just at midnight there came out a proclamation 
that every slave in Russia was forever set free. The proclama- 
tion had gone forth, and all the slaves of the realm believed it. 
They have been free ever since. Suppose they had not believed 
it? They never then would have got the benefit of it. If one 
man can liberate forty millions, has not God got the power to liber- 
ate every captive? 

Moody on "Duty" — How He Loves His Mother. 

I have an old mother away down in the Connecticut moun- 
tains, and I have been in the habit of going to see her every year 
for twenty years. Suppose I go there and say, "Mother, you 
were very kind to me when I was young — you were very good to 
me; when father died you worked hard for us all to keep us to- 
gether, and so I have come to see you because it is my duty. " I 
went then only because it was my duty. Then she would say to 
me, "Well, my son, if you only come to see me because it is your 
duty, you need not come again. " And that is the way with a 
great many of the servants of God. They work for Him because 
it is their duty — not for love. Let us abolish this word duty, and 
feel that it is only a privilege to work for God, and let us try to 
remember that what is done merely from a sense of duty is not 
acceptable to God. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 147 



PARENTAL. 



A Father's Love Trampled Under Foot. 

I once heard of a father who had a prodigal boy, and the 
boy had sent his mother down to the grave with a broken heart, 
and one evening the boy started out as usual to spend the night 
in drinking and gambling, and his old father, as he was leaving, 
said: "My son, I want to ask a favor of you to-night You 
have not spent an evening with me since your mother died. Now 
won't you gratify your old father by staying at home with him?" 
"No," said the young man, "it is lonely here, and there is noth- 
ing to interest me, and I am going out." And the old man prayed 
and wept, and at last said: "My boy, you are just killing me as 
you have killed your mother. These hairs are growing white, 
and you are sending me, too, to the grave." Still the boy would 
not stay, and the old man said: "If you are determined to go 
to ruin, you must go over this old body to-night. I cannot resist 
you. You are stronger than I, but if you go out you must go 
over this body." And he laid himself down before the door, and 
that son walked over the form of his father, trampled the love of 
his father under foot, and went out. 



"That is the Price of My Soul." 

I heard a story of a young lady who was deeply concerned 
about her soul. Her father and mother, however, were worldly 
people. They thought lightly of her serious wishes; they did not 
sympathize with her state of mind. They made up their minds 
that she should not become a Christian, and tried every way they 
could to discourage her notions about religion. At last they 
thought they would get up a large party, and thus with gayety and 
pleasure win her back to the world. So they made every prep- 



148 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Parental 

aration for a gay time; they even sent to neighboring towns and 
got all her most worldly companions to come to the house; they 
bought her a magnificent silk dress and jewelry, and decked her 
out in all the finery of such an occasion. The young lady thought 
there would be no harm in attending the party; that it would be 
a trifling affair, a simple thing, and she could, after it was over, 
think again of the welfare of her soul. She went decked out in 
all her adornments, and was the belle of the ball. Three weeks 
from that night she was on her dying bed. She asked her mother 
to bring her ball dress in. She pointed her finger at it, and, burst- 
ing into tears, said, "That is the price of my soul." She died 
before dawn. Oh, my friends, if you are anxious about your soul, 
let everything else go ; let parties and festivals pass. 



The Two Fathers. 

Whenever I think about this subject, two fathers come be- 
fore me. One lived on the Mississippi river. He was a man of 
great wealth. Yet he would have freely given it all could he have 
brought back his eldest boy from his early grave. One day that 
boy had been borne home unconscious. They did everything 
that man could do to restore him, but in vain. " He must die, " 
said the doctor. "But, doctor," said the agonized father, "can 
you do nothing to bring him to consciousness, even for a mo- 
ment?" "That may be," said the doctor; "but he can never 
live." Time passed, and after a terrible suspense, the father's 
wish was gratified. "My son," he whispered, "the doctor tells 
me you are dying." "Well," said the boy, "you never prayed 
for me, father; won't you pray for my lost soul now?" The 
father wept. It was true he had never prayed. He was a stran- 
ger to God. And in a little while that soul, unprayed for, passed 
into its dark eternity. Oh, father ! if your boy was dying, and 
he called on you to pray, could you lift your burdened heart to 
heaven? Have you learned this sweetest lesson of heaven on 
earth, to know and hold communion with your God? And be- 
fore this evil world has marked your dearest treasures for its prey 
have you learned to lead your little ones to a children's Christ? 



Parental AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 149 

What a contrast is the other father? He, too, had a lovely 
boy, and one day he came home to find him at the gates of death. 
"A great change has come over our boy," said the weeping 
mother; "he has only been a little ill before, but it seems now as 
if he were dying fast." The father went into the room, and placed 
his hand on the forehead of the little boy. He could see the 
boy was dying. He could feel the cold damp of death. "My 
son, do you know you are dying?" "No; am I?" "Yes; you 
are dying." "And shall I die to-day?" "Yes, my boy, you can- 
not live till night." "Well, then, I shall be with Jesus to-night, 
won't I, father?" "Yes, my son, you will spend to-night with the 
Saviour. " Mothers and fathers, the little ones may begin early; be 
in earnest with them now. You know not how soon you may be 
taken from them, or they may be taken from you. Therefore let 
this impression be made upon their minds — that you care for their 
souls a million times more than for their worldly prospects. 



The Stolen Boy — A Mother's Love. 

There was a boy a great many years ago, stolen in London, 
the same as Charley Ross was stolen here. Long months and 
years passed away, and the mother had prayed and prayed, as 
that mother of Charley Ross has prayed, I suppose, and all her 
efforts had failed and they had given up all hope; but the mother 
did not quite give up her hope. One day a little boy was sent 
up into the neighboring house to sweep the chimney, and by some 
mistake he got down again through the wrong chimney. When 
he came down, he came in by the sitting-room chimney. His 
memory began at once to travel back through the years that had 
passed. He thought that things looked strangely familiar. The 
scenes of the early days of youth were dawning upon him; and 
as he stood there surveying the place, his mother came into the 
room. He stood there covered with rags and soot. Did she 
wait until she sent him to be washed before she rushed and took 
him in her arms? No, indeed; it was her own boy. She took 
him to her arms all black and smoke, and hugged him to her bo- 
som, and shed tears of joy upon his head. 



150 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES 



PRAYER. 



A Voice from the Tomb. 

The other day I read of a mother who died, leaving her child 
alone and very poor. She used to pray earnestly for her boy, 
and left an impression upon his mind that she cared more for his 
soul than she cared for anything else in the world. He grew up 
to be a successful man in business, and became very well off. 
One day not long ago, after his mother had been dead for twenty 
years, he thought he would remove her remains and put her into 
his own lot in the cemetery, and put up a little monument to her 
memory. As he came to remove them and to lay her away the 
thought came to him, that while his mother was alive she had 
prayed for him, and he wondered why her prayers were not 
answered. That very night that man was saved. After his 
mother had been buried so long a time, the act of removing her 
body to another resting place, brought up all the recollections of 
his childhood, and he became a Christian. O, you mothers ! 



Prayer Answered. 

Only a few years ago in the City of Philadelphia there was 
a mother that had two sons. They were just going as fast as 
they could to ruin. They were breaking her heart, and she went 
into a little prayer-meeting and got up and presented them for 
prayer. They had been on a drunken spree or had just got start- 
ed in that way, and she knew that their end would be a drunk- 
ard's grave, and she went among these Christians and said, 
"Won't you just cry to God for my two boys?" The next morn- 
ing those two boys had made an appointment to meet each other 
on the corner of Market and Thirteenth streets — though not that 
they knew anything about our meeting — and while one of them 



Prayer. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 151 

was there at the corner, waiting for his brother to come, he fol- 
lowed the people who were flooding into the depot building, and 
the spirit of the Lord met him, and he was wounded and found 
his way to Christ. After his brother came he found the place too 
crowded to enter, so he too went curiously into another meeting 
and found Christ, and went home happy; and when he got home 
he told his mother what the Lord had done for him, and the sec- 
ond son came with the same tidings. I heard one of them get 
up afterwards to tell his experience in the young converts' meet- 
ing, and he had no sooner told the story than the other got up 
and said: "I am that brother, and there is not a happier home 
in Philadelphia than we have got." 



The Praying Mother. 

I remember being in the camp and a man came to me and 
said, "Mr. Moody, when the Mexican war began I wanted to en- 
list. My mother, seeing I was resolved, said if I became a Chris- 
tian I might go. She pleaded and prayed that I might become a 
Christian, but I wouldn't. I said when the war was over I would 
become a Christian, but not till then. All her pleading was in 
vain, and at last, when I was going away, she took out a watch 
and said: My son, your father left this to me when he died. 
Take it, and I want you to remember that every day at 1 2 o'clock 
your mother will be praying for you. Then she gave me her 
Bible, and marked out passages, and put a few different references 
in the fly-leaf. I took the watch and the Bible just because my 
mother gave them. I never intended to read the Bible. I went 
off to Mexico, and one day while on a long, weary march, I took 
out my watch, and it was 12 o'clock. I had been gone four 
months, but I remembered that my mother at that hour was pray- 
ing for me. Something prompted me to ask the officer to relieve 
me for a little while, and I stepped behind a tree away out on 
those plains of Mexico, and cried to the God of my mother to 
save me." My friends, God saved him, and he went through the 
Mexican war, "and now," he said, "I have enlisted again to see 
if I can do any good for my Master's cause. 



152 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Prayer. 

The Sinner's Prayer Heard. 

There was a man at one of our meetings in New York City 
who was moved by the Spirit of God. He said, "I am going 
home, and I am not going to sleep to-night till Christ takes away 
my sins, if I have to stay up all night and pray. I'll do it. " He 
had a good distance to walk, and as he went along he thought, 
"Why can't I pray now as I go along, instead of waiting to go 
home?" But he did not know a prayer. His mother had taught 
him to pray, but it was so long since he had uttered a prayer that 
he had forgotten. However, the publican's prayer came to his 
mind. Everybody can say this prayer. That man in the gallery 
yonder, that young lady over there : " God be merciful to me a 
sinner." May God write it on your hearts to-night. If you for- 
get the sermon, don't forget that prayer. It is a very short prayer, 
and it has brought joy — salvation — to many a soul. Well, this 
prayer came to the man, and he began, "God be merciful to me 
a ," but before he got to "sinner" God blessed him. 



Black-balled by Man, Saved by Christ. 

At the Fulton street prayer-meeting a man came in, and this 
was his story. He said he had a mother who prayed for him ; he 
was a wild, reckless prodigal. Some time after his mother's death 
he began to be troubled. He thought he ought to get into new 
company, and leave his old companions. So he said he would 
go and 'join a secret society; he thought he would join the Odd 
Fellows. They went and made inquiry about him, and theyfound 
he was a drunken sailor, so they black-balled him. They would 
not have him. He then went to the Freemasons; he had nobody 
to recommend him, so they inquired and found there was no good 
in his character, and they, too, black-balled him. They didn't 
want him. One day, some one handed him a little notice in the 
street about the prayer-meeting, and he went in. He heard that 
Christ had come to save sinners. He believed Him; He took 
Him at his word; and, in reporting the matter, he said he "ca??ie 
to Christ without a character, and Christ hadn't black-balled him. " 
My friends, that is Christ's way. 



AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 153 



REAPING. 



Sad Ending of a Life that Might have been Otherwise. 

I remember a few years ago I felt very anxious for a man 
who was present at a meeting like this. At the close of the meet- 
ing I asked all to rise, and he rose among the others. I took 
him aside and said, "Now you are going to become a Christian 
— you will come out for the Lord now?" He said he was want- 
ing to very much. The man was trembling from head to foot, 
and I thought surely he was going to accept Him. I spoke to 
him in his hesitating condition, and found out what was standing 
between him and Christ. He was afraid of his companions. 
Nearly every day and night news came to me that some of these 
employers and clerks make light of these meetings, and make fun 
of all who attend them, and so many give the same reason that 
this man did. I said to him: "If heaven is what we are led to 
believe it is, I would be willing to accept it and bear their fun." 
I talked with him, but he wouldn't accept it. He went off, but for 
weeks he came every night, and went away as he came, without 
accepting it. One day I received a message to come and see 
him. He was sick, and I went to his chamber. He wanted to 
know if there was hope for him in the eleventh hour? I spoke 
to him, and gave him every hope I could. Day after day I vis- 
ited him, and, contrary to all expectation, I saw him gradually re- 
covering. When he got pretty well he was sitting on the front 
porch, and I sat down by him and said: "You will be going now 
to confess Christ; you'll be going to take your stand for him 
now?" "Well," said he, "Mr. Moody, I promised God on my 
sick bed that I would; but I will wait a little. I am going over 
to Michigan, where I am going to buy a farm and settle down, 
and then I'll become a Christian." "If God cannot make you a 
Christian here he cannot do it there," I replied. I tried to get 



154 MOODY 'S ANECDOTES Reaping. 

him to make an unconditional surrender, but he wouldn't; he 
would put it off till the next spring. "Why, " I said, "you may not 
live till next spring." "Don't you see I am getting quite well?" 
"But are you willing to take the risk till next spring?" "Oh, yes, 
I'll take it; Mr. Moody, you needn't trouble yourself any more 
about my soul; I'll risk it; you can just attend to your business, 
and I will to mine, and if I lose my soul, no one will be to blame 
but myself — certainly not you, for you've done all you could." I 
went away from that house then with a heavy heart. 

I well remember the day of the week, Thursday, about noon, 
just one week from that very day, when his wife sent for me. 
When I went to their home I found her in great trouble, and 
learned that he had had a relapse. I asked if he had expressed a 
desire to see me. She said "No; he is always saying * there is no 
hope,' and I cannot bear to have him die in that condition. " I 
went into the room. He did not speak to me, but I went around 
to the foot of the bed and looked in his face and said, "Won't 
you speak to me?" and at last he fixed that terrible deathly look 
upon me and said, "Mr. Moody, you need not talk to me any 
more. It is too late ; there is no hope for me now. Go talk to 
my wife and children; pray for them; but my heart is as hard as 
the iron in that stove there. When I was sick He came to the 
door of my heart, and I promised to serve Him, but I broke that 
promise, and now I must die without Him." I got down to pray. 
"You needn't pray for me," he said. I prayed, but it seemed as 
if my prayer went no higher than my head. He lingered till that 
night, repeating, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and 
I am not saved." There he lay in agony, every few minutes this 
lamentation breaking from him. Just as the sun was going down 
behind those Western prairies, his wife leaned over him, and in 
an almost inaudible voice, he whispered, "The harvest is past, 
the summer is ended, and I am not saved, " and he died. He had 
lived a Christless life, he died a Christless death, he was wrapped 
in a Christless shroud, and he was buried in a Christless grave. 
Oh, how dark and sad! Dear friends, the harvest is passing; the 
summer will soon be ended; won't you let Him redeem you? 



Reaping. AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 155 

By the Wayside. 
I went down past the corner of Clark and Lake streets one 
day, and, fulfilling my vow, on seeing a man leaning up against a 
lamp-post, I went up to him and said : "Are you a Christian?" He 
damned me and cursed me, and told me to mind my own business. 
He knew me, but I didn't know him. He said to a friend of his 
that afternoon that he had never been so insulted in his life, and 
told him to say to me that I was damning the cause I pretended 
to represent. Well, the friend came and delivered his message. 
"May be I am doing more hurt than good," I said; "maybe I'm 
mistaken, and God hasn't shown me the right way. " That was 
the time I was sleeping and living in the Young Men's Christian 
Association rooms, where I was then President, Secretary, jani- 
tor, and everything else. Well one night, after midnight I heard 
a knock at the door. And there on the step leading into the 
street stood this stranger I had made so mad at the lamp-post, 
and said he wanted to talk to me about his soul's salvation. He 
said: "Do 'you remember the man you met about three months 
ago at the lamp-post, and how he cursed you? I have had no 
peace since that night; I couldn't sleep. Oh, tell me what to do 
to be saved. " And we just fell down on our knees, and prayed, 
and that day he went to the noon prayer meeting and openly 
confessed the Saviour, and soon after went to the war a Christian 
man. I do not know but he died on some Southern battle-field 
or in a hospital, but I expect to see him in the kingdom of God. 



Sowing the Tares. 
I was at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, and I noticed there a 
little oil painting, only about a foot square, and the face was the 
most hideous I have ever seen. On the paper attached to the 
painting were the words "Sowing the tares," and the face looked 
more like a demon's than a man's. As he ?owed these tares, up 
came serpents and reptiles, and they were crawling up his body, 
and all around were woods with wolves and animals prowling in 
them. I have seen that picture many times since. Ah ! the reap- 
ing time is coming. If you sow to the flesh you must reap the flesh. 



156 MOODY S ANECDOTES 



TRUST. 



"I Am Trusting Jesus" — A Young Lady's Trust. 

The other Sunday, when I was speaking on "Trust," a 
person came to me next day and said, "I want to tell you how I 
was saved. You remember you told about that lady who sought 
Christ three years and could not find Him, and when you told 
that, it was I. I was in that same condition and through your 
story I got light. " I don't think I have ever told it but what 
somebody got light and life. I will tell it again, for I would go 
up and down the world telling it if I could get a convert. One 
night I was preaching, and happening to cast my eyes down dur- 
ing the sermon, I saw two eyes just riveted upon me. Every 
word that fell from my lips she just seemed to catch with her own 
lips, and I was very anxious to go down where she was. After 
the sermon I went to the pew and said, "My friend, are you a 
Christian?" "Oh, no," said she, "I wish I was. I have been 
seeking Christ three years and I cannot find Him." Said I, "Oh, 
there is a great mistake about that." Says she, "Do you think 
I am not in earnest? Do you think, sir, I have not been seek- 
ing Christ?" Said I, "I suppose you think you have, but Christ 
has been seeking you these twenty years, and it would not take 
an anxious sinner and an anxious Saviour three years to meet, 
and if you had been really seeking Him you would have found 
Him long before this." "What would you do, then?" Said I, 
"Do nothing, only believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved. " "Oh, " said she, "I have heard that till my head 
swims. Everybody says, believe! believe! believe! and I am 
none the wiser. I don't know what you mean by it. " "Very 
well," said I, "I will drop the word; but just trust the Lord Jesus 
Christ to save." "If I say I trust Him, will He save me?" "No, 



Trust AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 157 

you may do a thousand things; but if you really trust Him, He 
will save you." "Well," said she, "I trust Him, but I don't feel 
any different." "Ah," said I, "I have found your difficulty. You 
have been hunting for feeling all these three years. You have 
not been looking for Christ." Says she, "Christians tell how 
much joy they have got." "But," said I, "you want Christian ex- 
perience before you get one. Instead of trusting God, you are 
looking for Christian experience." Then I said : "Right here in 
this pew, just commit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust 
Him, and you will be saved," and I held her right to that word 
" trust," which is the same as the word "believe" in the Old Tes- 
tament. "You know what it is to trust a friend. Cannot you 
trust God as a friend?" She looked at me for five minutes, it 
seemed, and then said slowly: "Mr. Moody, I trust the Lord 
Jesus Christ this night to save my soul." Turning to the pastor 
of the church she took him by the hand and repeated the decla- 
ration. Turning to an elder in the church she said again the 
solemn words, and near the door, meeting another officer of the 
church, she repeated for the fourth time, "I am trusting Jesus," 
and went off home. The next night when I was preaching I saw 
her right in front of me, "Eternity" written in her eyes, her face 
lighted up, and when I asked inquirers to go into the other room 
she was the first to go in. I wondered at it, for I could see by 
her face that she was in the joy of the Lord. But when I got in I 
found her with her arms around a young lady's neck, and I heard 
her say, "It is only just trusting. I stumbled over it three years 
and found it all in trusting;" and the three weeks I was there 
she led more souls to Christ than anybody else. If I got a dif- 
ficult case I would send it to her. Oh, my friends, won't you 
trust Him? Let us put our trust in Him. 



Mrs. Moody Teaching her Child. 

There was a time when our little boy did not like to go to 
church, and would get up in the morning and say to his mother, 
"What day is to-morrow?" "Tuesday." "Next day?" "Wednes- 
day." "Next day?" "Thursday;" and so on, till he came to the 



158 MOODY S ANECDOTES. Trust. 

answer, "Sunday." "Dear me," he said. I said to the mother, 
"We cannot have our boy grow up to hate Sunday in this way; 
that will never do. That is the way I used to feel when I was a 
boy. I used to look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread. 
Very few kind words were associated with the day. I don't know 
that the minister ever put his hand on my head. I don't know 
that the minister even noticed me, unless it was when I was asleep 
in the gallery, and he woke me up. This kind of thing wont do; 
we must make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; 
not a day to be dreaded; but a day of pleasure. " Well the moth- 
er took the work up with this boy. Bless those mothers in their 
work with the children. Sometimes I feel as if I would rather be 
the mother of John Wesley or Martin Luther or John Knox than 
than have all the glories in the world. Those mothers who are 
faithful with the children God has given them will not go unre- 
warded. My wife went to work and took those Bible stories and 
put those blessed truths in a light that the child could compre- 
hend, and soon the feeling of dread for the Sabbath with the boy 
.was the other way, "What day's to-morrow?" he would ask, "Sun- 
day." "I am glad." And if we make those Bible truths interesting 
— break them up in some shape so that these children can get at 
them, then they will begin to enjoy them. 



"More to Follow." 

Rowland Hill tells a good story of a rich man and a poor 
man in his congregation. The rich man desired to do an act of 
benevolence, and so he sent a sum of money to a friend to be 
given to this poor man as he thought best. The friend just sent 
him five pounds, and said in the note, "more to follow." After a 
while he sent another five pounds and said, "more to follow. " 
Again and again he sent the money to the poor man, always with 
the cheering words, "more to follow." So it is with the wonder- 
ful grace of God. There is always "more to follow." 



More and more, more and more, 

Always more to follow ; 

Oh, His matchless, boundless love ! 

Still there's more to follow.—/'. P. Bliss. 



IUDEX 



A PAGE. 

A Blind Man Preaches to 3,000.000 People.. 41 
A Boy's Mistake — A Sad Reconciliation... 52 

A Business Man Confessing Christ 86 

A Child at its Mother's Grave 27 

A Child Looking for its Lost Mother 63 

A Child Visits Abraham Lincoln and Saves 

the Life of a Condemned Soldier 11 

A Day of Decision. t 99 

A Commercial Traveler 71 

A Distiller Interrogates Moody 140 

A Dream 77 

A Dying Infidel's Confession 135 

A Father's Love for His Boy 66 

A Father's Love Trampled Underfoot 147 

A Father's Mistake '. 52 

Affection , 5 

Affliction 11 

A Good Excuse 108 

A Heavy Draw on Alexander the Great. ..125 

A Little Boy Converts His Mother 50 

A Little Boy's Experience 48 

A Little Child Converts an Infidel 56 

All Eight or All Wrong 44 

A Long Ladder Tumbles to the Ground... 125 

A Man Drinks up a Farm. 44 

A Man who Would Not Speak to his Wife.. 73 

A Mother Dies that her Boy May Live 43 

A Mother's Mistake 39 

An Emperor Sets Forty Million Slaves 

Free 146 

An Infidel who Would Not Talk Infidelity 

Before his Daughter 135 

An Irishman Leaps Into the Life-boat 96 

A Bemarkable Case 141 

A Rich Father Visits his Dying Prodigal 

Son in a Garret and Forgives him 116 

ARumseller's Son Blows His Brains Out..i39 

A Sad and Singular Story 130 

Assurance...., 20 

A Story Moody Never Will Forget 82 

A Voice from the Tomb 150 

A Wife's Faith 112 

A Zealous Young Lady 83 

B 

Believe 26 

Bible Study 34 

Black-balled by Man — Saved by Christ 152 

Blind 39 

Broken Hearts 12 

By the Wayside 155 

C 

Calling the Roll of Heaven 132 

Cast Out But Rescued 138 

Child Stories 47 

Christian Work 75 

Christian Zeal 80 

Christ Saves 64 

Confessing Christ 85 

Conversion 91 

D 

Decision 98 

Deliverance 101 

"Deluged With Blood" 32 

Dr. Arnott's Dog " Rover" 124 



E PAGE. 

" Emma, This is Papa's Friend" 59 

Engaging Rooms Ahead 21 

Excused at Last 109 

Excuses 105 

F 

Faith in 

Faith More Powerful than Gunpowder 114 

"Father, Father Come This Way" 16 

" Five Million Dollars" 20 

Forgiveness 115 

Forty-one Little Sermons 79 

Four-score and Five 84 

"Free" 95 

G 
George H. Stewart Visits a Doomed Crim- 
inal 101 

Get the Key to Job 35 

Gold 18 

Gold 25 

Gold 29 

Gold 33 

Gold 38 

Gold 42 

Gold 46 

Gold 73 

Gold 79 

Gold 90 

Gold 97 

Gold 100 

Gold 104 

Gold no 

Gold 114 

Gold 122 

Gold 126 

Gold 132 

Gold 137 

Gold 143 

Governor Pollock and the Condemned 

Criminal , 72 

Grace 123 

H 

Heaven 127 

" He Will Not Rest" 22 

How a Citizen Became a Soldier 94 

How a Little Study Upset the Plans of a 

few Prominent Infidels 137 

How a Young Irishman Opened Moody's 

Eyes 7 

How Christ Expounded It 31 

" How Funny You Talk" 30 

How Moody's Faith Saved an Infidel in 

How Moody's Mother Forgave her Prodi- 
gal Son 115 

How Moody Treated the Committees 84 

How Moody was Blessed — Mark your Bi- 
ble 34 

How Moody was Encouraged 75 

I 

I Am Not All Right 105 

I Am Not One of the Elect 107 

I Am Trusting Jesus.— A Young Lady's 

Trust 156 

I Can't Feel 106 

"I Don't Know" 23 

"If I knew" 23 



INDEX— Continued. 



PAGE. 

I Have Intellectual Difficulties 105 

" I Know" 24 

Infidel Books 136 

Infidelity 133 

Intemperance 138 

Its Better Higher Up 132 

"It Will Kill Her" 15 

J 
Jesus " Wants them All to Come" 55 

Lady Ann Erkskine and Rowland Hill 68 

Liberty 144 

Liberty Now and Forever 144 

Little Jimmy 60 

Little Moody 47 

Love 50 

Love, Not the Rattan Conquers Little 

Moody 5 

Love's Triumph in John Wannamaker's 

Sunday-school 9 

M 
Money Blind 42 

Moody and his Little Willie 54 

Moody and the Dying Soldier 26 

Moody and the Infidel. 32 

Moody and the Judge 119 

Moody Asks a Few Questions 142 

Moody a Young Convert 95 

Moody in a Billiard Hall. — A Remarkable 

Story 118 

Moody in a California Sunday-school 127 

Moody in Prison 64 

Moody on Duty — How he Loves his Moth- 
er 146 

Moody Puts a Man in his Prophets Room 99 
Moody Visits Prang's Chromo Establish- 
ment . 35 

Moody's Declaration 24 

Moody's First Impulse in Converting Souls 91 

Moody's First Sermon on Grace 123 

Moody's Little Emma 60 

Moody's Mistake 98 

Mothers are Looking down from Heaven... 128 

"More to Follow" 158 

Mr. Morehouse's Illustration 113 

Mrs. Moody Teaching her Child 157 

. N 

Napoleon and the Private 20 

Never to see its Mother 55 

Note What Jesus Says 37 

O 

O Edward 141 

Old Sambo and his Massa 144 

One Book at a Time 36 

One Word 37 

Out of Libby Prison 145 

P 

Parental 147 

Peter's Confession 88 

" Pull for the Shore" 40 

Prayer 150 

Prayer Answered 150 

E, 

Rational Belief 29 

Reaping 153 

Reuben Johnson Pardoned 121 

S 
Sad Ending of a Life that Might have been 
otherwise 153 



PAGE. 

Sad Lack of Zeal 83 

Safe in the Ark 97 

Sambo and the Infidel Judge 134 

Satan's Match 80 

Saved and Saving 81 

Sowing the Tares 155 

Spurgeon and the Little Orphan 63 

Spurgeon's Parable 103 

Stubborn Little Sammy 61 

Sudden Conversion, (bee Conversion) 91 

T 

Taking the Prince at his Word 112 

That is the Price of my Soul 147 

" That is Your Fault" „ 14 

The Arrows of Conviction , 93 

The Artist and the Beggar 70 

The Bible 30 

The Blind Beggar...., 88 

The Blood 43 

The Czar and the Soldier 69 

The Demoniac 102 

The Drunken Father and his Praying 

Child 142 

The Dying Boy 129 

The Dying Child 57 

The Eleventh Commandment 131 

The Faithful Aged Woman 76 

The Faithful Missionary 78 

The Family that Hooted at Moody 88 

The Fettered Bird Freed 45 

The Finest Looking Little Boy Mr. Moody 

Ever Saw 58 

The " I am's," " I will's," etc 38 

The Invitation 109 

The Little Tow-headed Norwegian 87 

The Missing Stone 83 

The Most Hopeless Man in New York 

now a Sunday-school Superintendent. .140 

The Place of Safety 18 

The Praying Mother 151 

The Eich Man Poor 128 

The Scotch "Draw the Bible" on False 

Doctrine 31 

The Scotch Lassie.- 101 

The Sinner's Prayer Heard 152 

The Stolen Boy — A Mother's Love 149 

The Two Fathers 148 

The Way of the Transgressor is Hard 139 

The Young Convert 89 

The Young French Nobleman and the 

Doctor 133 

Two Young Men 87 

Those Hypocrites 106 

True Love 6 

Trust 156 

V 

Very Hard, yet Very Easy.. 92 

Very Orthodox 23 

W 

"We will Never Surrender" 76 

What a Woman Did 85 

Why did he not take his Wife along? 108 

"Won by a Smile" 47 

Y 

"You Know me Moody" 28 

Young Moody Pennyless in Boston, is 

Warned by his Sister to " Beware of 

Pick-pockets 124 



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